The Social Chamber of the Supreme Court has confirmed and declared the finality of a sentence that condemns the Public Business Agency of Radio and Television of Andalusia (RTVA) and its subsidiary company Canal Sur Radio y Televisión SA (Canal Sur) for violating the right to strike of the host of a radio program on March 8, 2021, International Women’s Day, when she was replaced by a colleague who was in minimum service and maintained the broadcast of the radio program that she usually hosted.
The ruling of the Seville Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) sentenced the public entity to pay compensation for moral damage in the amount of 7,500 euros to the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) of Andalusia, which filed the demand. The Supreme Court, as requested by the CGT and the Prosecutor’s Office, now rejects the appeal filed by the RTVA and Canal Sur, which must read the ruling of this sentence, as news, on the Canal Sur Mediodía Córdoba program that it usually presented the striking worker, who that day saw one of her fundamental rights violated, as the Supreme Court has just ratified in a ruling against which there is no appeal and which also imposes costs of 1,800 euros on the appelling defendants.
RTVA and Canal Sur had maintained in their appeal that the right to strike had not been violated because the radio program in question actually lacked a regular presenter, while such functions could be performed by any of the different editors of the program, in such a way that the company’s decision to entrust the presentation of the program to another of the editors who was not on strike was part of the ordinary exercise of its organizational power.
The ruling, to which elDiario.es Andalucía has had access, recalls that CGT had called a 24-hour general strike for the day of March 8, 2021 by means of a document registered in the Employment Department of the Junta de Andalucía. The worker, who provided services at the RTVA workplace in Córdoba, was the regular presenter of the radio news program Canal Sur Mediodía Córdoba, which is broadcast from 11:55 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday, and on that date “she exercised her right to strike, supporting the CGT-A call.” “Very occasionally, the program may be presented by other editors of the same who replace her, when she is not working due to being on vacation or other similar circumstance,” detailed the first instance ruling among the facts proven after the trial held on March 7, 2022.
“An absolutely extraordinary decision”
Despite the arguments of the defendants, the Supreme Court is now categorical: “It was not a case of ordinary substitution in which any exceptional circumstance could arise that justified the change of presenter, for reasons even beyond the control of the usual presenter. , but rather a business decision clearly aimed at undermining the legitimate exercise of the right to strike to visualize before third parties and the general public the lower incidence of the labor protest by keeping the broadcast of the program on the air.
“An absolutely extraordinary decision, with a specific and determined purpose clearly aimed at harming the exercise of the right to strike,” the Supreme Court ruled following the actions of RTVA and Canal Sur on that date. Sources from the public channel consulted by this newspaper did not want to comment on the high court’s ruling.
According to the TSJA ruling, now confirmed, the management of the company, through the territorial director of the center of Córdoba, “five minutes before the start of the broadcast” of the 8M program “the order was given” to an editor of the program, which had minimal services, to present the news, which it normally did not do. There is no evidence that said worker had done so on any occasion that year, although he did do so in 2020, at a time coinciding with a medical leave precisely for the affected worker who, according to the ruling, is “the regular presenter” of the program. .
The TSJA judges did not agree at the time to the request that a program of the same duration as the news channel Canal Sur Mediodía Córdoba be broadcast. “It is understandable” the worker’s interest in knowing the content of the ruling that declares her right to strike violated, but “it is enough for the news to be disclosed.” “A radio program lasting more than an hour is not necessary,” so “the sentence is specified in that the news is reported on the program, on a weekday, Monday, given that on the 8th of March 2021 was Monday, with the reading of the ruling of this sentence.”
7,500 euros in compensation
Regarding compensation, CGT requested 18,000 euros “but it is not quantified separately, material damage and moral damage, and since no material damage has been proven, it must be understood that only moral damage is claimed.” The first ruling explained that “compensation not only serves to compensate or repair the damage caused, but also to prevent and deter violating behavior,” which is why the compensation is set, in accordance with the Law on Infringements and Sanctions in the Social Order (LISOS) “for very serious offenses” at 7,500 euros.
Related to this matter, it is worth remembering that the Junta de Andalucía has been condemned on numerous occasions for violating the right to strike during different 8M. There have already been around twenty judicial resolutions in which the judges, successively, continue to consider that establishing 100% of the services that are provided in a normal situation is contrary to the legal system, although the courts leave the sentences reached by CGT criminally unpunished. in the social and contentious-administrative order.
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