This Friday, many people looked at the sky early on the warning of heavy rains and the risk of floods in various parts of the country, such as the Community of Madrid. The second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has recommended “prioritizing teleworking” in alert areas and recalled that existing labor rights for cases of climatic emergencies, which even include paid permits in some cases of impossibility of going to the job.
“We recommend avoiding displacements and prioritizing teleworking in the alert areas,” said Yolanda Díaz on social networks, through his profile in Bluesky, where he has placed the staff of the Ministry of Labor in Madrid to make use of distance work this Friday. “Let’s take care of us,” added the head of Labor.
The increase in weather alerts in recent years, either due to high temperatures every summer, as well as strong rains, with the last dramatic episode in the Dana de Valencia and Castilla-La Mancha, the preventive warnings by the Ministry of Labor has increased to protect the health of working people.
The Occupational Risk Prevention Law regulates that working people “have the right to effective protection in labor safety and health” (article 14). That right has a double face: the businessman’s obligation to protect the workforce “in all aspects related to work.”
Thus, employers, companies and public administrations have the duty to protect their templates, above all risk, including climatic emergencies and weather alerts that involve a risk for workers, either in the performance of their work or on the way to go to their position.
Even so, the Ministry of Labor has regulated in recent years some specific precepts to try to strengthen preventive measures in companies before these alerts and weather emergencies.
Teleworking, reduction or adaptation of day
“Given the risks due to heavy rains, we want to remember the regulations that allow the reduction or modification of the day when there is a weather alert,” Yolanda Díaz said Thursday.
Companies must evaluate the risks and, before these, agree on the most appropriate preventive measures. An option, which expanded during the emergency by the COVID, is teleworking, for which many companies have opted this Friday in the capital.
Regarding the “reduction or modification of the day”, they are other options available, although not obliged in general terms. Imagine a trade in which teleworking is not possible, but that agrees with its employees a reduced schedule to avoid the hours affected by the weather alert or modify the day on that specific date, to avoid the risk of the template.
In what circumstances can it be mandatory to adapt or reduce the day? In the case of outdoor and workplaces that, due to the activity developed, cannot be closed, The Ministry of Labor did regulate specifically that “preventive measures will include the prohibition of developing certain tasks during the hours of the day in which adverse weather phenomena concur, in those cases where the proper protection of the working person cannot be guaranteed otherwise.”
In addition, it was established that “in the case in which it is issued by the State Meteorology Agency or, where appropriate, the corresponding autonomic organ in the case of the autonomous communities that have said service, a notice of adverse orange or red levels adverse meteorological phenomena o Modification of the hours of development of the planned day ”.
Paid permits
“The regulations also recognize paid permits to safeguard the safety of workers in case of adverse weather phenomena,” recalled the Ministry of Labor this Thursday night.
This is the new paid work permit that Yolanda Díaz created before the Dana catastrophe and is designed for climatic emergencies.
Collected in article 37.3 of the Statute of Workers, a permit paid by the company of “Up to four days due to impossibility of accessing the work center or transiting through the circulation roads necessary to go to the same, as a result of the recommendations, limitations or prohibitions to the displacement established by the competent authorities, as well as when a serious and imminent risk situation, including those derived from a catastrophe or phenomenon or meteorological phenomenon, adverse ”.
“After four days, the permit will last until the circumstances that justified it disappear, without prejudice to the company’s possibility to apply a suspension of the employment contract or a reduction in the day derived from force majeure.” That is, an ERTE.
Of course, if the work activity allows teleworking or distance work (“and the status of communication networks allow their development”), the company may establish it instead of granting the paid permit.
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