The Pérez-Llorca Labour Law Update debates the upcoming Intern’s Statute

Pérez-Llorca’s Employment practice area held a new Pérez-Llorca Labour Law Update session. This seminar was attended by Employment partners Daniel Cifuentes, Isabel Moya and Laura Pérez, and Employment of counsel Yolanda Valdeolivas. They addressed the main trends that will affect the employment market in the coming months and discussed the latest rulings of the Spanish Supreme Court and the National High Court on employment matters.

The session started with Daniel Cifuentes explaining the trends in the employment law sector. Among other matters, Cifuentes analysed issues such as the four-day work week, the political agreement reached at the European level to set an adequate minimum wage and the Labour and Social Security Inspection Authorities’ action plan to audit overtime and irregular temporary contracts. Likewise, the Pérez-Llorca partner highlighted some of the changes announced up to the end of the legislature, such as the ‘democratisation of companies’, which seeks to bring workers onto company boards of directors, and the ‘modernisation of compensation’, which aims to make compensation more dissuasive with regard to dismissal.

Cifuentes then summarised the most significant rulings handed down by the Spanish and European courts in relation to various matters such as collective dismissals, intermittent permanent contracts, leaves of absence, equality plans, recording working hours and variable remuneration.

Then, following the usual ‘Labour Law Update’ session format, Laura Pérez and Isabel Moya presented the top three most significant judgments in employment law matters from recent months. First of all, Laura Pérez highlighted the National High Court’s ruling of 15 February 2022 on recording working hours. In this case, the National High Court considers that a signature on a sheet of paper is not a valid system for complying with the requirements established in article 34 of the Workers’ Statute since, among other disadvantages, there is no guarantee that this record will be kept for four years, which is what the regulation stipulates.

Subsequently, Isabel Moya highlighted the plenary session of the Supreme Court’s judgment of 18 May 2022 on temporary employment. Moya emphasised that this ruling, handed down after the approval of the labour reform, is a very illustrative precedent in terms of how the Spanish Supreme Court will interpret the new grounds for temporary employment.

Lastly, Pérez outlined the National High Court’s ruling of 22 March 2022 on remote working agreements. On this occasion, the National High Court ruled that the individual remote working agreement offered by a company to its workers contained some clauses that are considered null and void and, therefore, the affected employees could claim the termination of their contract under Article 50.1.c of the Workers’ Statute.

To conclude the session, Yolanda Valdeolivas analysed the main features of the future Interns’ Statute, highlighting the changes to the sandwich training contract, the different types of training and regulated qualifications, and what the remuneration is like for this type of internship. She also emphasised the fact that internships are not designed to benefit companies, but rather to broaden the training of the interns themselves.