The Supreme Court has rejected for the first time that a judge recognize additional compensation to a worker unfairly dismissed, in addition to the 33 days per year worked, if the compensation was too low. The judges explain that compensation of this type “cannot be increased judicially with other amounts that take into account the specific circumstances of the case” and that this, as stated in Spanish regulations, does not contravene international labor regulations.
In Spain, says the Supreme Court, “constitutional doctrine has stated that the assessed compensation that our legislation has established is adequate compensation.” The legal formulas in force in Spain, the judges add, “have been offering legal security and uniformity for all workers who, in the event of the loss of the same job, are compensated on equal terms.” This ruling, the judges specify due to the dates of the lawsuit, has not been issued based on the revised version of the European Social Charter which currently includes “the right of workers dismissed without valid reason to adequate compensation or other appropriate repair.”
The compensation of 33 days per year worked has also been the subject of recent study by of the Council of Europe. At the end of November, this Strasbourg-based body issued a recommendation to Spain to review labor legislation and increase, in practice, these compensations in cases of unfair dismissals, understanding that they are too low and do not meet their objective: they neither repair the damage suffered by the affected workers nor are they a deterrent for companies due to their dismissal. amount. It is a matter equally controversial within the Government.
The case that the Supreme Court’s Social Plenary has studied is that of a woman hired at the end of 2019 as an ‘operation manager’ in a company in Barcelona dedicated to managing the international transfer of workers. It was in the last days of March 2020, shortly after the arrival of the pandemic and the state of alarm, when the company announced his dismissal, just four months after his incorporation. The reason: the emerging coronavirus pandemic had affected many of its contracts and the economic outlook for the company was disastrous.
The company granted him the maximum compensation of 33 days per year worked, which in this case did not reach 1,000 euros. The settlement and interest raised the total compensation to 2,700 euros. The woman appealed and got the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia to recognize that her dismissal had been unfair. It was true that its income and volume of operations had decreased with the pandemic, but the dismissal was not appropriate: just five days later it launched a less burdensome ERTE for the rest of the employees.
“Clearly insignificant” compensation
That ruling that is now annulled by the Supreme Court rejected that the worker had to be compensated for moral damages, but it did because the financial compensation that the company had paid her was “clearly insignificant.” “It does not compensate for the damage caused by the loss of a job, nor does it have a deterrent effect for the company,” said the judges of the Catalan court. It was “an excessive exercise of the right to fire,” the TSJ reproached, because if that same worker had waited a few days she could have taken advantage of an ERTE and not been left without a job in the first days of the pandemic.
The numbers of dismissal processes are some of the largest in Spanish judicial statistics. According to the latest data from the social jurisdiction, throughout 2023 the courts studied the cases of more than 125,000 workers affected by layoffs. Most of those who took the process to trial, statistics reveal, obtained a favorable ruling, although a significant number of these lawsuits are resolved in prior conciliations.
The Supreme Court now explains that, indeed, and as the company that appealed pointed out, there were contradictions between this ruling of the Catalan court and others from recent years on similar cases. “The appealed ruling has recognized compensation higher than that legally established in cases of unfair dismissals, which has been rejected in the contrast ruling,” say the judges of the Social Plenary. And they recognize that, until now, there was no clear statement: “It has had a very different response from the judicial bodies and even at the level of scientific doctrine.” “The relevance of the debate is evident and it is now up to this Court to resolve that discrepancy.”
The Chamber recognizes that it recently applied the regulations of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on the obligation of companies to give workers the opportunity to defend themselves before being dismissed in a disciplinary manner. And in this case, this body’s reference to “adequate compensation or appropriate reparation” for someone affected by an unfair dismissal does not conflict with the 33 days per year worked that are usually recognized. “It is internal legislation that can determine the appropriate compensation.”
#Supreme #Court #rejects #33day #compensation #unfair #dismissal #increased #court
