See some recent judgments of interest
Dismissal and group of companies
The Supreme Court [SC 23-03-2022] has confirmed that, when objective dismissal for economic reasons is carried out in a group of companies for employment purposes, the cause or negative economic situation must occur in the group as a whole and not in one or another company in isolation.
Given that the employer is the group itself, it is not feasible to take advantage of the concurrence of the negative economic situation in one of the companies in order to terminate employment contracts, given that the cause must concur in the group as a whole. Therefore, the written notice given to the employee notifying him/her of the termination must state the economic position of the company as a whole or of the group as a whole. If the economic information of one of the group companies is omitted from the letter of dismissal, its content cannot be considered to be sufficient or to meet the legal requirements.
Change of shift
A worker who worked morning and afternoon shifts requested a reduction in the working day and a specific timetable to work in the morning, and the company refused for organisational reasons.
The High Court of Justice of Madrid [TSJ Madrid 20-06-2022] ruled that the right to a specific timetable is not an absolute right, but must be weighed up taking into account the particular situation of the company and its organisational needs. In this case, the company had proved the organisational impossibility of the plaintiff not providing her services in the afternoon, as another worker already had a fixed morning shift. To grant such a claim would mean that the other workers would have to work afternoon shifts, which would imply a breach of contract and a change in their current shift patterns. Furthermore, it is concluded that no fundamental right has been infringed.
Most representative trade unions
The Supreme Court [SC 20-07-2022] has recognised that the most representative trade unions at regional or national level (UGT and CC. OO.) have standing to challenge a dismissal, even if there are no workers’ representatives (RLT) in the company and no elections have been held.
A delivery company providing services in the field of digital delivery platforms sent its workers several messages through one of these platforms informing them that they would no longer receive delivery requests and that their accounts had been deactivated. The trade unions UGT and CC. OO. filed a lawsuit as they considered that this action should be considered a collective dismissal. As there is no record of the existence of the RLT, the most representative trade unions in the sector have standing to sue.