• Courts.The Constitutional endorses dismissals for repeated absenteeism even if there are justified causes
  • Sentence Absenteeism: nine days of justified leave in 2 months can open the door to a dismissal

A week after the Constitutional Court (TC) established the new doctrine on the possibility that justified but intermittent medical leave was cause for objective dismissal, the multinational Atento - specializing in the management of call centers - has renounced the contract of the president of the company committee of his delegation in Lleida for this reason.

The judgment of the TC of last October 29 responded to a question of unconstitutionality presented by a Social Court of Barcelona with respect to article 52 (section d) of the Statute of Workers , which states that a contract may be terminated due to lack of assistance to work, still justified but intermittent, when they reach 20% of the working days in two consecutive months, provided that the total lack of assistance in the previous twelve months reaches 5% of the working days or 25% in four discontinuous months within A period of twelve months.

The dismissal of the unionist of UGT of Atento thus becomes the first employment contract terminated after the endorsement of the Constitutional on the application of this article. Through a statement, the union has argued that the dismissal of the workers' representative is not due to their justified leave - as stated in the communication of their dismissal, the worker accumulated three periods of leave for 18 business days in a period of two months, exceeding the percentage of absences that the law sets at 22.86% - but it is a "trade union persecution" because the president of the company committee has been denouncing for several months "the drift of labor law that the more than 200 workers in the center are suffering. "

"We will defend the workers and workers of Atento in Lleida and now especially the president of the company committee for this unfair business decision," said the secretary general of UGT-Terres de Lleida, José Luis Aguilà , who says they will reach Where it takes to reverse the situation. The union has described the ruling of the TC as a measure "inadmissible for the constitutional rights of workers that prioritizes freedom of enterprise over the right to health and work of working people." "Resolutions like this make the need to repeal labor reforms that have done nothing more than grant more power to the employer and less rights to workers," UGT adds in its statement.

European Justice Resource

Workers' Commissions have also criticized the labor measure and announced that together with UGT they will appeal the judgment of the TC before the Court of Justice of the European Union and before the International Labor Organization , in addition to denouncing companies that fire workers for accumulating casualties justified

On the other hand, the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine has expressed its "alarm" today before the Constitutional ruling. The member of the work group of Inequities in Health of the organization Javier Padilla has criticized the percentages provided in the law especially "if they are passed to whole numbers and working hours." "20% of the two-month days can be only nine days, while 5% of a year are eleven days of work," he explains. As an example, Padilla says that an ankle sprain "means the maximum casualties for one year and pneumonia can now be a cause for dismissal," Servimedia reports.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • constitutional Court
  • economy

Taxation The TC declares the municipal capital gain unconstitutional if it exceeds the profit obtained

Labor Absenteeism: nine days of justified leave in 2 months can open the door to a dismissal

Companies The Constitutional endorses dismissals for repeated absenteeism even if there are justified causes