The Supreme Court has established that the time during which a remote worker cannot provide services Due to breakdowns or incidents, it is counted as actual working time.
In a decision dated June 26, the social court rejected the appeal of the company Abai Business against a September 2022 decision of the National Court, relating to a collective trial initiated at the request of the CGT union, which CCOO and CIG subsequently joined.
Among the issues raised in the trial was the unions’ request to detail the expenses related to remote working, and that the time of interruption of the day due to a breakdown or incident is not attributable to the worker and is not deducted from his day. Similarly, that the percentage of distribution between face-to-face work and remote work in the teleworking agreement is specified.
The National Court ruled in favour of the unions in a ruling now ratified by the Supreme Court, based on the applicable European directive and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
European regulations establish that will be understood as working time “any period during which the worker remains at work, at the disposal of the employer and in the exercise of his activity or functions, in accordance with national laws and/or practices.”
Furthermore, the doctrine of the CJEU has established “on several occasions”, recalls the Supreme Court, that “the concepts of “working time” and “rest period” are mutually exclusive” and that the directive does not envisage an intermediate category between the two.
The decree that regulates teleworking in Spain states that working conditions of staff who provides services in this way “cannot be in a worse state than that of in-person work.”
In this way, if the power or network outages that may occur in the workplace does not imply that face-to-face workers must recover the working time affected by these incidents or that their wages are not reduced, nor can it affect those who provide services through teleworking.
