Temporary workers at ERTE, the most exposed to risk of dismissal within six months

Only a month before the biggest crisis the Spanish economy has experienced since the post-war period of the 20th century, nine out of every new contracts signed were temporary. These types of jobs are the most vulnerable, despite the safeguards signed in the Social Agreement that makes layoffs more expensive for six months.

The pact that will be transferred today to the Council of Ministers includes a clause that was already legal since March 31, that of "evaluating" the dismissals of workers covered by temporary employment regulation files (ERTE) when the companies in which they work are subject to high variability or seasonality in employment. "

"It seems that it is intended for sectors such as tourism or the automotive sector where there is more seasonality and temporality," explains BakerMakenzie's work partner, David Díaz. "In any case, what is collected is only a commitment, so the monitoring table of this agreement should wait to see if a specific regulation can be obtained that makes the obligation to safeguard employment more flexible," he clarifies.

Seasonality and temporary contracts are two elements that define the Spanish labor market and that unions point to as the reason why it is precarious in an almost structural way. The proof, they point out, is the fact that within 15 days of the last month of March almost 900,000 jobs were destroyed, a rate of 60,000 daily . "It is something that is not seen in any country in Europe," they underline at UGT.

Temporality affects both tourism, where companies are planning their high season almost blindly this year, or the automotive industry. But also to construction, to the countryside, to the health sector, to education or, in the face of complaints from officials to the Administration .

"High job turnover from temporary employment is at its highest," read the latest analysis of the pre-CCOO coronavirus job market. "In addition to the high temporality of hiring, its low average duration matters much more: many short-term contracts are signed that hardly create jobs. In 2019, 39% of new contracts had a duration equal to or less than a month."

With this situation, the pacts to extend the ERTE until June 30 will have in temporary workers the most vulnerable piece facing a layoff. It will be the Labor Inspectorate that establishes whether, for example, with a very low turnover, an employer will have objective reasons to dismiss.

In a second line would be the workers with indefinite contracts, more protected by that term that gives six months of truce to the dismissals.

The texts agreed upon by the social partners reflect the state of mind of the four signatory organizations : CEOE, Cepyme, UGT and CCOO are as deliberately ambiguous as they can be in order to formalize the signing of a pact that is later complex to apply. The term of six months begins to count from the end of the ERTE. But at what point does it end?

«It seems that the possibility is opened that these six months will count either from the time the first worker rejoins the activity or, if not, from the time each worker rejoins, and therefore instead of a general period that would begin with the return there would be multiple individual terms for the first employee's work, "explains Díaz. "The logical thing would be to think that there is only one single term since the first worker rejoins the activity," he points out.

In business areas, it is assumed that the term will count for an entire workforce, whatever the size, since the first worker in a company undergoing an ERTE has their suspension canceled “even for an hour”. These sources indicated that this will not be reached in a generalized way but that they expect many companies to start the countdown on the shielding of layoffs tomorrow, when the legal translation of the agreements signed by Antonio Garamendi, Gerardo Cuerva, comes into effect. Pepe Álvarez and Unai Sordo with Pedro Sánchez.

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