The Social Court No. 1 of A Coruña has declared void the dismissal of a Mercadona worker in the town of Carballo, considering that the company’s decision constitutes discrimination due to illness. The sentence, which can be appealed before the Superior Court of Xustiza de Galicia (TSXG), condemns the Food Distribution Company to readmit to the employee in the same conditions, pay the salaries that it has stopped receiving and paying compensation of 5,000 euros for damages for the violation of their fundamental rights.
The worker, employee of Mercadona since 2016, was on decline between December 2021 and April 2023 for an anxiety disorder that attributed “to the work pressure” suffered “following the beginning of the pandemic.” After his return, he was signed a series of commitments and objectives for his section, that of fruit shop, which not all the colleagues had to subscribe.
Since its reinstatement, the company lists a series of “breaches” in its duties, mainly related to the registration, presentation or quality of the products. Mercadona considered them a very serious fault that justified the disciplinary dismissal. However, the judge did not understand it the same and annulled the “disproportionate” decision.
Without hesitation of the existence of these facts, the sentence reduces what Mercadona considers “fraud, disloyalty and abuse of trust”, “voluntary and continuous decrease in performance”, “poor management” or “serious negligence” to the category of minor offenses related to “carelessness, error or inexplicable delay in the execution of any work.”
Therefore, for the judge, the dismissal “is not a measure provided, nor can it be considered to attend an objective and reasonable justification to proceed to the extinction of the employment contract.” “This means that dismissal should be described as void by violation of fundamental right, being to the measure adopted a discrimination due to illness,” he concludes.
Collect information about low employees “Vulnea Rights”
The CIG union, which has been disseminated the resolution, highlights that the trial allowed to prove that Mercadona uses forms, which transfers the managers and those responsible for the store, to “collect certain information on workers in a situation of long -term medical leave”, including “the reincorporation forecasts”.
The sentence indicates that, the fact that the company collects this information, “in addition to being able to violate certain rights based on privacy, health and the right to data protection,” assumes that the company has knowledge of data on the disease or the duration of temporary disability “that are protected” and “are not reflected in the part of the decline that reaches the company.” This information, which can be achieved by third ways, such as asking colleagues, “violates not only the fundamental right to physical integrity, but the fundamental right to personal privacy.”
After hearing the sentence, the Trade Union Section of the CIG in the province of A Coruña agreed to convene a concentration on Monday, March 10, in front of the Mercadona de Carballo, the day when the worker returns to her position, to transfer her solidarity and “denounce persecution and discrimination, by the company, to the people who make those who claim their rights.” The mobilization will coincide with a symbolic date: o Day of Obreira Galega, which recalls the death in 1972 of two workers of the Ferrol shipyards, Amador Rey and Daniel Niebla, at the hands of the Francoist police.
The Central also indicates that this resolution adds to two other sentences won in recent weeks by workers from two Ourense stores for violation of their freedom of association. They recognize the right of both employees to perceive the annual premium that had been removed “unfairly”, those who had stopped perceiving and, in addition to compensating them for moral damages, the company is urged “that ceases in their anti -indical behavior against the CIG” is sentenced to pay them. When closing this information, Mercadona had not responded to the application of Eldiario.es to know its version of what happened.
#Court #Coruña #annuls #dismissal #Mercadona #worker #disease #discrimination
