When do they begin to compute the paid permits?
Article 37 of the Workers’ Statute recognizes the right of workers to enjoy a series of paid leave when one of the reasons listed.
The granting of these permits is based on the following causes:
- Marriage
- Birth of son
- Death, accident or serious illness, hospitalization or surgical intervention without hospitalization requiring home rest, of relatives up to the second degree
- Transfer of habitual residence
- For the fulfillment of an inexcusable duty of a public nature, including the exercise of the right to vote
- To carry out trade union or union representation functions in the legally or conventionally established terms
- To perform prenatal exams and techniques of preparation for childbirth
To these causes provided by law may be added the cases provided for in the collective bargaining agreement that can also regulate the conditions for the enjoyment of paid permits that improves, but can not, in any case, reduce those already established by Article 37.3 of the Statute from the workers.
Regarding the enjoyment of these permits, taking into account that these depend on the production of certain events, it is worth asking when the counting starts when the event takes place on a holiday. Can the calculation of the permit begin on a public holiday or should it begin to be computed on the first business day after the production of the causal event?
This issue is dealt with the recent Supreme Court judgment of February 13, 2018, which deals with the appeal of cassation against a ruling of the National Court issued in a collective dispute procedure raised by the CGT.
CGT in the Subject
The CGT, in interpretation of the provisions of article 28.1 of the State Collective Convention of Contact Center, intended to declare that the calculation of the permits for marriage, birth of a child and death of a relative, shall begin on the first working day following the of the causal event, when it occurred on a non-working day.
This claim was denied by the National Court, which in its judgment dismissed the lawsuit filed.
The aforementioned article 28.1 of the Contact Center Agreement established that “1. Workers, after notice and justification, may be absent from work, with the right to compensation, and from the moment the causal event occurs, for any of the reasons and for the following time: a) Fifteen calendar days in case of marriage. b) Three days in case of the birth of a child. c) Three days in the event of an accident, serious illness or hospitalization, or surgery without hospitalization requiring home leave, from relative to second degree (…). d) Four days in case of death of spouse, parents, political parents, children and siblings and two days in case of death, from relative to second degree (…) “.
The Supreme Court understands that the interpretation made by the National High Court is erroneous, holding that “the very title of the conventional precept (” paid leave “) shows us that permits are granted for their enjoyment in working days, as on holidays it is not I need to ask for them because they do not work, which corroborates the first paragraph of the article interpreted by saying “Workers … may be absent from work, with a right to retribution …”, an absence that, according to that wording, is irrelevant when it occurs in day holiday”.
According to the High Court, “what has been said is not distorted by the expression of the Collective Agreement that says” and since the causal event occurs “, by how much the same indicates that the permit can only be enjoyed from the causative event and not before”.
