They detect an increase in dismissals of workers in the trial period

According to a recent report from the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), which collects data from Social Security, this type of layoffs went from 5% before the reform to between 20% and 25% throughout the country. “The trial period is being taken advantage of by companies, which are using it fraudulently to hide what, in reality, is a temporary contract,” says Julián Cuevas, general secretary of CGT Murcia.

The formula is none other than hiring indefinitely and firing before completing the legally established trial period – six months for qualified technicians, two months for the rest of the workers and one month for temporary contracts of less than six months. , a 'modus operandi' that makes companies save on severance payments. In this way, workers hardly have options to go to court in their defense.

In December alone, the CGT was aware of 13 cases of dismissals during the testing phase. And, at the beginning of this year, they once again identified another dismissal that they call suspicious. A 26-year-old girl has just been fired from a hospitality business on the grounds that she had arrived late to her job three times. «If you check the documentation, it is ridiculous; first, because it is justified by medical reports that the young woman suffered from low back pain and, second, because one of those delays was only two minutes,” explains Cuevas, who warns that employers are increasingly using disciplinary files to be able to fire the employee. employee and avoid the actual payment that corresponds to the employee in the event of unfair dismissal. In the latter case, Cuevas indicates, those who decide to present a conciliation ballot quickly reach an agreement with the company and even receive more money than expected.

Precarious jobs

This situation occurs mainly, the CGT specifies, in those companies whose activity requires low-skilled employees such as parcel delivery and hospitality. According to the union, which considers that the labor reform has allowed companies to camouflage temporary employment with the trial period, there could be sectors in which this practice is being used, operating with interchangeable labor that barely needs to be trained, workers who after joining the company can be quickly profitable and whose dismissal for not exceeding the trial period responds to the company's interest in not accumulating compensation costs.

The legal services of UGT and CC OO have also confirmed the existence of workers who have been dismissed under dubious circumstances during the trial period. «UGT advocates reducing trial periods to the minimum essential in collective bargaining and adopting the necessary guarantees so that they obey their true nature and purpose, and do not become a substitute for temporary hiring that allows free and uncaused dismissals. », specified the deputy secretary general of UGT Region of Murcia, Eugenia Pérez.

For its part, CC OO regrets that these incidents and abuses regarding the fit of the type of work during the trial period “occur especially in activities of high temporality, greater precariousness and that maintained a high casual hiring rate,” underlines Víctor Romera. , Secretary of Union Action, Collective Bargaining and Employment of CC OO in the Region of Murcia. «It is a thorny issue because it does not really imply a dismissal as such; Nor can it be prosecuted because the injured party has only been working for a short time,” concludes the unionist.