Sara Polo Madrid
Madrid
Updated Friday, March 1, 2024-01:07
The conciliation continues to be theirs. Nine out of every 10 people who reduce their working hours to care for a family member are women
Social Courts Concern in companies due to the flood of requests for adaptation of working hours to reconcile
"I don't want to be the next Jenni Hermoso
. "
She repeats it over and over again and asks to be understood: she does not represent anyone, she is just a woman who has found herself in a complicated situation and has ended up in court.
Silvia's name is not Silvia and she does not live in Zaragoza either
, although she prefers that we introduce her that way.
She agrees to pose in front of the camera as long as she doesn't recognize her.
Her voice shakes from pure nervousness, to Silvia, on the other end of the phone.
She chains calls between her mother's dentist and her daughter's pediatrician.
Life suddenly became complicated after the pandemic.
In the midst of confinement she became a single mother.
Her mother's diagnosis came shortly after her: Alzheimer's.
She found herself alone with two women caring
for her: one was learning to talk and walk;
the other relearned how to live.
Silvia is 48 years old and has spent the last 20 years outside of Spain, in a destination that she prefers not to reveal so as not to complicate her existence even more,
teaching Spanish at the Cervantes Institute
.
She loves her job, for her the best job in the world next to medicine: "Teaching your language, your culture, learning everything that your students teach you."
Until a couple of years ago, that was his entire life.
But then, everything got complicated and war came
.
"They punished me for asking for conciliation," he says.
His case ended in court: "he was between a rock and a hard place and had nothing to lose."
Today, with a favorable sentence in his hand, he rejoins Cervantes after a year off due to depression and anxiety.
He does it, effectively, from home, but without even knowing what schedules he will have to keep.
But let's go back to the beginning, because in this case the chronology helps to better understand a convoluted process.
Let's go back to September 2022 and that frustrated burofax in which Silvia asked Cervantes to continue teaching
online
from Zaragoza, as due to circumstances beyond her control she had been doing since she returned from her maternity leave.
"Sometimes it seems that being a woman you cannot be the head of the family, even if you are alone"
Silvia, professor at the Cervantes Institute
"They constantly promote their online platforms because they have seen that, after the pandemic, that is where they can penetrate," explains their lawyer,
Maribel Pérez
.
«In fact, the students that Silvia had recently were not even from the city where the headquarters were located, they all studied by video call.
The remote system was already super tested
, all you have to do is take a look at its website.
Indeed, the first thing the public organization announces on its page is a virtual reading club.
And yet, the response to that burofax was negative: no, I could not work from Spain for a center abroad.
There was no internal rule for teleworking or regulated remuneration for such a situation
and, once the exceptional situation generated by Covid was over, the guideline was to recover in-person activity.
Two weeks later, the order was toughened: either he would return in person or he would have to choose another provisional destination until he obtained a place in the next three transfer competitions.
"Not only did they deny her conciliation, but they punished her," emphasizes the lawyer, who recalls that, according to the labor regulations of the Cervantes Institute approved in 2009, teachers will only accept the transfer voluntarily.
"She wants to return to the center where she has spent the last 20 years when her mother passes away and her daughter is a little older
," she says.
Faced with a resounding refusal that left no room for negotiation, the issue ended up in court with two open procedures: one to force teleworking linked to conciliation;
another, to stop the transfer.
Silvia lost both in the first instance, but she appealed and last summer
the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) ruled that the teacher had the right to "reconcile
her work and family life through remote work while the current circumstances persist." her ".
The Cervantes Institute had to adapt her workplace so that she could teach from Zaragoza.
"This journey is nothing more than a punishment and leads her to a situation of absolute uncertainty"
Maribel Pérez, Silvia's lawyer
The transfer process, however, dictates that Cervantes' move was correct
.
The TSJM dismissed the plaintiff's appeal and the matter has been referred to the Supreme Court, which has not yet communicated whether it admits it or not, so today, when she returns after a year away from work suffering from severe mental health problems Motivated by a highly stressful situation of uncertainty,
Silvia will already be assigned to another center
, in a different country, and will have to compete with her colleagues to once again have a permanent place.
«We send many emails to Human Resources.
Almost all, no response.
Finally, the head of the department assured us that he would abide by the sentence, but that he might have to be divided among several centers around the world, each with their own schedules, because the online teaching offer in the new destination was not enough to cover his shift. job.
They have acted arbitrarily and have penalized her
.
This journey is nothing more than a punishment and leads her to a situation of absolute uncertainty," says lawyer Pérez.
For its part, the Cervantes Institute denies that there was no response to the communications and even reports that it has been sent the computer that will allow it to work remotely.
He assures that he has limited himself to abiding by both court rulings
.
"It seems that what he is looking for is to be granted a privilege that no other person enjoys"
Cervantes Institute
Sources from the institution affirm that the worker's remuneration has been maintained, which changes depending on the country of destination, linked to the new center to which she is assigned despite the fact that she works from Zaragoza, where she would earn less.
"It seems that, however, he expects her to be paid that of her previous center [notably higher] even though she has not actually moved from Spain."
For the institution, which for the first time grants the possibility of working from Spain for a center abroad to one of its workers
, "more than defending a labor right, it seems that what it seeks is to be granted a privilege that no one enjoys." another person"
.
«I know that my situation is disconcerting, that in this organization the teacher is conceived outside and in person.
Before I gave everything for work, but now I have a daughter and I take care of my sick mother, and that bothers them.
Sometimes it seems that being a woman you cannot be the head of the family, even if you are alone
.
His future plan involves resuming his job and combining it as best as possible with taking care of his mother and his daughter "without dying trying."
"I know it's hard but it doesn't have to be impossible," she says.
"Please don't make it impossible for me."