Press Room

Spain is required to adopt the necessary measures to ensure daily/weekly rest periods, maximum working hours, and paid annual leave (Articles 3, 5, and 6 of EU Directive 2003/88 and Article 31.2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union), including the employer’s obligation to establish a working time record (CJEU judgment of 14/05/19). It is not possible to provide for an exception to this obligation for domestic employers, as: (i) it would render the obligation meaningless since no alternative means are proposed to guarantee these rights; and (ii) it would constitute indirect discrimination because (a) domestic workers are predominantly women, and (b) there is no objective factor that justifies such differential treatment in pursuit of a higher legitimate public interest. CJEU 12/19/2024

From April 3, 2025, the employee who has requested or is currently enjoying i) flexible working hours for work-life balance (article 34.8 of the Workers' Statute [WS]) or ii) a paid leave for accident/serious illness, hospitalization or surgery of a family member according to article 37.3 b) of WS, will again be protected against a termination without serious grounds or with formal mistakes, and the termination will be automatically declared null and void. In addition, the employee will be entitled to terminate his contract based on a breach of contract by the employer, having the right to the severance compensation corresponding to unfair terminations, when, among other reasons, the company a) pays the salary more than 15 days late within 6 months, or b) owes the employee 3 months of salary within 1 year (not necessarily consecutively in both cases).

From December 4, 2024, family members (except great-grandchildren, great grandparents, uncles, nephews, and cousins) of employees working at the same company will be legally protected against any adverse consequence/retaliation by the company if the employee in question claims their rights against the company. Therefore, among others, the termination of the family member without serious grounds will result in having a null and void termination; hence, the family member would be entitled to reinstatement, lost wages, and possible additional severance compensation for breach of fundamental rights. Law 5/2024, November 11 – Right to defense.

ILO Termination of Employment Convention (1982) can be directly applied because i) Spain ratified it in 1985, ii) art. 96.1 of the Spanish Constitution introduces ratified international treaties into our legal system, and iii) art. 7 of the Convention is complete enough not needing any additional enforcement rules to be applied. Art. 7 requires that before the employment termination of a worker related to their conduct or performance, they must be provided with the opportunity to defend themselves from the allegations made, unless the employer cannot reasonably be expected to provide this opportunity. Until yesterday, companies where not obliged to grant this prior hearing to the employees because the Supreme Court’s own jurisprudence held that this was not necessary, but, with this new ruling, Supreme Court’s doctrine has been modified and, from now on, this prior hearing would be required and, may it not be complied, the dismissals will be considered unfair. Spanish Supreme Court 11/18/24