Labor Law Quizzes on Leave and Suspension

Alternative Dispute Resolutions (ADR)

• ADR is an extrajudicial method for resolving labour conflicts.
• Judicial resolution involves courts.
• Extrajudicial resolution occurs outside of courts, including conciliation, mediation, and arbitration.
• The right to strike in defense of workers' interests is recognised.
• Laws regulating strikes must guarantee essential community services.
• Lock-outs are employer-initiated closures of work centers during strikes or collective irregularities with specific triggers, like violence risk, damage, or work stoppages.

Workers' Representatives

• The Spanish Constitution guarantees workers' right to organize and participate in trade unions.
• Two employee representation types exist in Spain.
• Staff delegates represent workers in companies or workcenters with up to 50 workers.
• Works councils serve employers with over 50 workers.

Employment Rights

• Workers are informed and consulted on matters affecting them, including company status and economic sector developments, accidents, and occupational health issues.
• Knowledge of balance sheets, profit/loss accounts, and annual reports, along with worker sanctions, are essential.
• Workers have rights to communicate about changes in the workforce, working hours, relocation, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and training programs.
• Workers can monitor social security and employment regulations and participate in collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).
• Workers can actively collaborate with management on conciliation measures.
• Workers have guarantees, such as protection against discrimination during employment, including job security and promotion decisions based on their status.
• Workers have the right to express their views and receive credit for hours worked.

Dismissal

• The employer has the power to manage, set rules, control, and enforce disciplinary sanctions.
• Collective dismissal involves the termination of a significant number of workers over a defined period, due to economic, technical, organizational, or production issues.
• Objective dismissal can be based on worker ineptitude, failure to adapt to jobs or necessary technical modifications, and economic/technical/organizational/production causes.
• Disciplinary dismissal includes repeated, unjustified absence, misconduct, abuse of trust, decreased work performance, drunkenness, drug abuse, harassment (based on various grounds including gender, among others), and any behavior harmful to the company.

Conciliation Act

• Conciliation is a prior, compulsory administrative procedure before the Mediation and Arbitration Service (SMAC).
• It aims to achieve amicable settlements and avoid court action.
• Conciliation requests involve a form outlining the worker's claim and specified facts.
• The procedure involves summonses from SMAC for both parties to attend the conciliation hearing, with the possibility to agree.
• Non-agreement allows proceeding to court.
• Company absence from conciliation implies waiver of right to conciliation (worker moves to court.).

Effects of Dismissal

• Dismissal outcomes can be fair, unfair, or null and void.

Termination of Employment Relationship

• Termination can be by mutual agreement, due to causes in the contract, expiring time limits, or worker/employer unilateral decisions.
• Worker's unilateral decisions without cause include resignation and abandonment.
• Causes for termination with cause include transfer, substantial modification of work conditions, victim of gender violence, and employer non-fulfillment.
• Causes beyond the parties' control include death, permanent incapacity, disability, retirement, and force majeure.
• Legal regulations (art. 49) outline termination terms for various causes (death, resignation, expiration of time period etc).

Suspension of the Employment Relationship: Leave of Absence

• Suspension is defined as a temporary leave from work while the employment contract's continuity remains.
• Reasons for suspension include mutual agreement, worker incapacity, birth/adoption/foster care of children, public office duty, imprisonment without conviction, force majeure, and economic/technical/organizational/production-related difficulties.
• Leave of absence duration and effects, or other conditions like whether or not salary is paid and whether there's a right to job reservation, are subject to specifics contained in labor agreements.

3 New Permits for Child and Partner Care (2023)

• Parental leave covers up to 8 weeks for child care (age up to 8).
• Paid leave of 5 days for second-degree family or de facto partner care due to illness, hospitalization, etc..
• Paid leave of up to 4 days for unforeseen family emergencies, allowing for urgent issues, illness, or an accident to family members.
• The law promotes work-life balance in accordance with EU Directives.

Labour Mobility

• Functional mobility allows employers to reassign tasks within an established professional group, while respecting workers' rights, without causing negative impacts on their economic or employment agreements. 
• Horizontal mobility refers to movements within the same professional group.
• Vertical mobility refers to upward or downward movements involving different professional groups (e.g., promotion or demotion).
• Limits to mobility include those established by specific jobs or regulations (e.g., employment restrictions or contractual agreements).
• Geographical mobility involves changing work locations (e.g., due to business reasons or transfers within a company).

Contracting and Subcontracting

• Contracting involves external service management in decentralized production (outsourcing) between a main company and an auxiliary company.
• The main purpose is cost reduction.
• Subcontracting means businesses hiring external entities for tasks related to their core activities. 
• Principal companies must comply with regulatory obligations on liabilities involving both fixed remuneration and social security, along with reporting duties to worker's representatives.
• Contractors and subcontractors have an obligation to provide information to workers, social security, and worker representatives before the contracts commence.
• Occupational health obligations are present when workers of principal, contractor, and subcontractor companies are in the same workspaces and encompass risk assessments, accident prevention procedures, and measures to protect worker health.

Company Succession

• Company succession defines a change in the ownership of a company, its operational locations, or a production unit.
• Methods include inter vivos (such as sales, lease agreements, mergers/takeovers) or mortis causa (succession and inheritance to heirs).
• Succession affects the company's employment relationship's (including compensation aspects).
• Legal continuity through subrogation is guaranteed and the obligations, responsibilities and commitments stay in place.

Work Hours, Holidays, Overtime, and Salary

• Working day duration (maximum 8 hours a day/ 40 hours per week, subject to specifics in collective/individual agreements).
• Overtime is outside of agreed working hours, with possible regulations dependent on company/sectoral agreements or collective agreements.
• Paid public/national holidays, which might include additional company/sectoral holidays.
• Workers’ rights and responsibilities regarding working hours (e.g. breaks, rest times) are protected by national and possibly sectoral/company based regulations and agreements.

Leave of Absence

• A temporary break from work during which employees remain covered by their employment contract without their work obligations being terminated.

Other Employment Contract-Related Terms

• Probation period is a trial period in which an employer can, depending on the collective bargaining agreement or employment contract, terminate a contract without notice/compensation.
• Notice period is the time in which an employer and/or employee inform the other party about a possible termination or change to labor conditions.
• Classification of employment contracts vary according to the worker’s working days e.g. Full time/Part time/ temporary
• Types of employment contracts also include training contracts (with corresponding rules/provisions), temporary contracts (with corresponding rules/provisions), and specific contracts (with corresponding rules/provisions).
• Distance work (telework) regulations and their content.