A court has sentenced producer Nacho Cano’s company to compensate one of the artists of his musical with almost 12,000 euros. Malinche whom he dismissed unfairly in 2023. The social judges reject the attempt by the founder of Mecano to compensate the musician with a much lower amount when trying to apply an agreement different from that of actors in the Community of Madrid. The ruling recalls that last July another resolution also condemned Cano for a similar maneuver to drastically reduce the compensation of one of his irregularly dismissed dancers. The music producer is called to testify as a defendant in a few days in the case of the false scholarship holders for his musical Malinche.
The ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid, to which elDiario.es has had access, explains that the worker began to provide his services for Cano in the musical Malinche as a guitarist in the summer of 2022, shortly before its premiere. It was in April 2023, a few months after the end of the first season, when they informed him of his disciplinary dismissal, accusing the artist of a “voluntary and continued decrease in his work performance.” Shortly after, the company recognized that, in reality, it was an unfair dismissal, but as in other cases affecting Nacho Cano, it began a legal battle to try to pay the lowest compensation possible.
A social court ruled in favor of this musician, Aitor Antruejo, whom this newspaper contacted, estimating the compensation he had to receive for the unfair dismissal at 11,992.95 euros. For this judge there was no doubt that the money had to be calculated based on the agreement for actors and actresses of the Community of Madrid. The objective of the company that manages Cano’s musical was to apply another agreement, the one that affects artists in sectors such as dance or the circus.
The difference between both options is relevant. The agreement for actors and actresses required them to pay five monthly payments, a total that was close to 12,000 euros. The option preferred by Malinche El Musical SL left, according to his calculations, a compensation of less than 2,000 euros.
The legal fight, as in other cases affecting the musical that Nacho Cano premiered in September 2022, has favored the side of the artist who was irregularly fired by the company that manages the producer’s work. The social chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid has rejected the last appeal of the company and Cano’s company, sources in the case explain, it has decided not to present a subsequent appeal before the Supreme Court, which declares the financial sentence final. . The judges reject all his arguments, which included specifying that he is a “musician” and not an actor, remembering that a few months ago, before the summer, the same Madrid TSJ resolved a similar case involving one of the dancers in the musical, agreeing to the worker.
A precedent in the absence of an agreement for musicians
Beyond the compensation to Aitor Antruejo, the sentence has added value for the situation of the musicians of Spanish musicals, who have been fighting for the improvement of their working conditions since last April, through the Coordinator of Musicians of Musical Theater (CMTM), of which this guitarist is a part. One of their main demands is the lack of their own agreement, which allows production companies to choose under which agreement to hire them. Hence, they want their own legal framework, which regulates the particularities of their activity.
In your case within Malinchethe company took advantage of the actors’ agreement of the Community of Madrid, but it is usual for companies to opt for the one corresponding to dance, circus, variety and folklore, whose conditions are worse.
The victory in the courts of this artist creates a precedent because it implies that there is a first final ruling in which it is recognized that the actors’ agreement was being applied to a musician, a situation that, according to what he explains to this newspaper, occurs in very exceptional situations. . The production companies (Stage, SOM Produce and LET’S Go are the main ones in the country) can choose which framework to apply, and although according to the guitarist, “the normal thing” would be for them to use the actors framework – as is the case with casts and bodies. dance–, “with musicians they avoid it to save money, taking advantage of the fact that they are not obliged.”
“We are never actors, even if we can. Thanks to the fact that in Malinche Yes, despite the fact that they have been defending that their management was wrong, I have been able to receive this compensation. They tried to collect the cable to get rid of the compensation, but this was the agreement that was in the contract and based on which they were paying the payroll,” he argues.
The guitarist raised another lawsuit with Nacho Cano’s company for the payment of overtime, which did not go to trial and was resolved with an agreement. About his experience during the ten months he was working in Malincheassures that “everything was chaos”: “When I came in there were no recordings of what I had to play, scores or arrangements, which I ended up doing and that’s where they stayed.”
Declaration as accused
The sentences revealed by elDiario.es handed down by social judges run parallel to the criminal case that a Madrid court has been directing against him and some of his collaborators for a few months. Procedures that investigate whether Nacho Cano brought almost twenty scholarship recipients from Mexico to Spain to train and work on his musical camouflaged as false tourists, even giving instructions to the young people so that they could avoid border controls and hide that, in In reality, they did not come to Spain on vacation.
After several months of proceedings and the producer himself requesting it, the judge decided to call Cano as a defendant for next January 13 in the Plaza de Castilla in Madrid. In the coming days the case will experience a boost with the testimonies of police officers who investigated the case as well as other interns who worked on his musical, in addition to the appearance of Nacho Cano himself and some of his collaborators as investigated.
Since the beginning of the investigation, the music producer has denounced that both his arrest and his subsequent accusation respond to a strategy to harm him for his explicit support for the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Recently the TSJ of Madrid rejected a complaint by Cano against the judge investigating him for prevarication in which he even stated that the fact that this same judge was the one investigating Ayuso’s partner for tax fraud was part of the framework against he. The judges flatly rejected his claims.
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