The Supreme Court (TS) has clarified this Wednesday that companies cannot affect the salary or working hours of the time that an employee who teleworks remains disconnected due to interruption of the electrical network or Internet failure, as long as it is due to causes beyond his control. He adds that he cannot count as rest time the time necessary to go to the hospital. grooming and attending to their physiological needs.
This is stated in a ruling from the Social Chamber of the high court, reported by Europa Press, which resolves the appeal of a company against a company. collective dispute demand which was raised by the union organizations in interpretation of the provisions of the Contac Center Collective Agreement.
According to the appellant, in this case those affected by the conflict are not under the regulation of Royal Decree Law 28/2020 and therefore the teleworking conditions that were adopted in the agreement signed by the company and the plaintiff union – a branch of CCOO- the March 12, 2020 are governed by those and “there is nothing in them to ensure that incidents in the supply of electricity or the network in the homes of teleworkers are effective working time.”
According to the resolution, the lower court ruling – from the National Court – understood that, if in face-to-face work the incidents in the electricity and network supply do not have any impact on the worker’s activity, “the condition cannot be worse than remote workers”. Along with this, he considered that “if It is the employer who must provide the means to the employee to carry out the work, its defective functioning, not attributable to the worker, cannot harm him, in accordance with article 30 of the Worker’s Statute”.
Now, the Social Chamber recalls that the agreement reached on March 12, 2020, during the pandemic situation, between the company and the CCOO representation “is an agreement that is adopted due to Covid-19 and in response to the mandate of article 5 of Royal Decree Law 8/2020 which, as recalled by the third Transitional Provision of Royal Decree 28/2020, generated a situation that, from then on, made the protection and certainty of workers in implemented remote work situations”.