Courts forced musical Malinche, of producer Nacho Cano, to compensate with 24,000 euros a dancer unfairly dismissed and to whom they tried to pay only a third of the money and avoid the trial. The social judges of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid limit themselves to confirming that the worker irregularly dismissed, as recognized by the company itself, is entitled to eight monthly payments of his salary and not only to the little more than 6,000 euros that they offered him. him at first. For weeks, another court in Madrid has been investigating criminally whether the producer brought in interns to work on the musical. Malinche in Madrid disguised as tourists.
The case that the specialized labor judges have just condemned is that of a dancer who began working on Cano’s musical a year before its premiere, being part of the cast until the company informed him of his dismissal in April 2023. The reason: “Continuous and voluntary decrease in performance in the execution of assigned tasks.”
This is one of the cases in which the Workers’ Statute explicitly considers that a company can dismiss a worker in a disciplinary manner, without paying him compensation. But the company behind the musical MalincheAt the same time, it acknowledged that it was an unfair dismissal and offered him just over 6,200 euros to consider that he had been compensated and, in practice, avoid a trial.
A social court ruled in favor of the dancer and ruled, in a decision now confirmed by the High Court of Madrid, that he was entitled to much higher compensation: 24,000 euros corresponding to eight months as provided for in the collective agreement for actors and actresses in Madrid when a contract of up to two and a half years is terminated. In contact with elDiario.es, company sources declined to specify whether the sentence is already final or whether it has been appealed to the Supreme Court.
The dancer signed two contracts while working on Nacho Cano’s musical, one for each season in which he participated in rehearsals and staging. One of the legal debates in this case was whether the contract could be considered a single contract for the purposes of calculating compensation and the judges answered in the affirmative: the total duration of their employment relationship is that of the two contracts together, and not just the second one.
“We are faced with the same contract of a maximum duration of two and a half years which justifies that the compensation to be paid in the event of termination of the contract without justified reason is calculated according to the amount represented by eight months’ salary and therefore for the sum of 24,000 euros,” the company specifies. judgment.
Criminal investigation against Nacho Cano
As this newspaper has published in recent months, there are different testimonies from former employees of the Nacho Cano show who criticize the working conditions they endure under the orders of the producer and musician. Days well above the legal limit, poor diet and even “threats to throw you out on the street” that overlap with the criminal investigation that investigates the presence of more than fifteen interns at his show in an allegedly illegal manner.
The capital’s Investigative Court No. 19 has indicted Cano and several of his collaborators in a case to determine whether he brought nearly 20 scholarship students from Mexico to Spain disguised as tourists. “I remind you that you will travel as tourists, you must not mention to immigration that you are going to study,” one of Cano’s collaborators explained to the scholarship students in a WhatsApp message contributed to the case.
According to the police, the young people “were presented as tourists, with instructions to act as if they were entering as such.” According to Nacho Cano, it was all part of a police operation to punish his support and closeness to Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid. “Personal destruction for political purposes is Stalinism,” Ayuso herself said in support of the producer.
The case is pending whether it will be possible to obtain a judicial declaration from the scholarship holders concerned, who from the beginning have publicly expressed their support for Nacho Cano and who have recently left the country, with some courts considering that their precautionary request is to be able to remain in Spain. All of them had to return to Mexico after the Government Delegation notified them that their residence permit for studies had been denied.
Cano’s defense also involves questioning the testimony of the dancer whose complaint led to the investigation. After suggesting at his first press conference that the young woman had been excluded from the series for her allegedly confrontational attitude, the producer provided the judge with messages in which the young woman would offer not to report the facts in exchange for a 6,000 euro charge.
