Employment - Legislative and case law developments

1. Law 4/2026 extends the rights of workers with disabilities or care needs and strengthens work-life balance protections for family carers

Law 4/2026 introduces wide-ranging reforms to disability and dependency legislation, including several changes affecting employment. It introduces a new definition of reasonable accommodation in the workplace and expressly provides that failure to make a required reasonable accommodation constitutes disability discrimination. It also makes it a very serious offence to employ anyone listed in the Central Register of Sex Offenders and Human Traffickers in a care role involving regular contact with people with disabilities or care needs. The law’s amendments to the rules on reduced working hours were, however, superseded by Royal Decree-Law 31/2026 before they took effect.

2. Spanish Government introduces new grounds for temporary disability leave and revises carers’ rights to reduced working hours

Royal Decree-Law 31/2026 introduces special temporary disability leave for a menopausal disorder recorded under a diagnostic code and for injuries resulting from gender-based violence. Both fall within the category of non-work-related illness or injury (contingencias comunes). It also allows parents to reduce their working hours to care for a child with cancer or a serious illness requiring ongoing treatment, even without a prolonged hospital stay. Where the child has a severe disability or high dependency, this right continues for as long as there is a documented need for care and the parent and child continue to live together. Both parents may exercise the right either alternately or simultaneously. The Decree-Law also changes the reference period for calculating temporary disability benefits in this category. The contribution base used will be that for the second month before the month in which leave begins.

3. CJEU: EU rules on information about working conditions do not protect the underlying substantive rights

The Court of Justice has held that EU rules requiring employers to inform employees of their working conditions protect only the right to receive that information, not the underlying substantive rights.

4. Travel to a different workplace at the employer’s direction counts as working time

The Court of Justice of the European Union has held that travel to and from a workplace other than the employee’s usual workplace counts as working time when undertaken at the employer’s direction to perform the employee’s contractual duties. This applies even outside normal working hours. The key consideration is that the employee remains at the employer’s disposal and cannot use that time freely. The employee need not perform any additional tasks during the journey.

5. Constitutional Court reaffirms the heightened duty to give reasons for decisions setting minimum service levels and finds that failure to meet it violates the right to strike

Administrative decisions setting minimum service levels are void if they fail to specify and adequately justify the criteria on which those levels are based, as this violates the right to strike. Generic instructions, such as requiring staffing to be limited to what is “strictly necessary”, are unlawful because they leave it to the employer, a party to the dispute, to determine the essential services to be maintained.

6. Supreme Court reaffirms CJEU approach: employers must inform and consult as soon as they contemplate collective redundancies

The Supreme Court has held that the duty to inform and consult arises as soon as an employer plans a workforce reduction that may exceed the statutory thresholds, even if the final number of dismissals is not yet known. The Court also reiterated its case law on when voluntary resignations and terminations during probation may count towards the collective redundancy thresholds.

7. Being a victim of gender-based violence does not, on its own, shift the burden of proof in a dismissal case: additional indications of discrimination are required

The Supreme Court has declared void the dismissal of an employee whom the company knew to be a victim of gender-based violence. That status alone is not enough to shift the burden of proof to the company. The burden does shift, however, where that status is accompanied by other circumstances indicating discrimination, such as prior medical leave, the company director’s involvement as a witness in criminal proceedings concerning gender-based violence, or the short interval between those events and the dismissal.

8. Supreme Court upholds employees’ disclosure of trade secrets to report wrongdoing

Employees may lawfully disclose trade secrets to expose wrongdoing if the disclosure falls within the exceptions set out in the Trade Secrets Law. They are protected both when they submit confidential documents in criminal proceedings and when they disclose them publicly by leaking them to a media outlet, provided they have reasonable grounds to suspect wrongdoing, even if the suspected wrongdoing is not ultimately established.

9. Outsourcing delivery services does not constitute an unlawful transfer of workers if the subcontractor independently organises and manages the service

The Supreme Court has upheld the outsourcing of home delivery services in a case in which the delivery company retained its operational independence. The company had its own organisational structure, exercised effective control over its IT tools and bore the business risk. These factors led the Court to conclude that there was no unlawful transfer of workers.