A succession of rulings are declaring inadmissible – and, in some cases, null – the dismissals carried out by the Department of Social Policy of more than 100 nursing home workers hired due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Xunta was communicating the end of these contracts, which were for work or service, in March 2024. The reason was that they were about to complete three years since they had been formalized and that is the reference limit for this type of links. labor. Justice is agreeing with the workers who have denounced and rejecting the arguments of the Galician autonomous administration.
Social Policy has been appealing the decisions of the social courts and, before the Superior Court of Xustiza of Galicia (TSXG), has stated that these contracts were intended to reinforce care in the centers due to health measures within the pandemic , as advanced Praza.gal. Although the Xunta itself points out that the health emergency ended in Galicia in October 2021, it assures that there were “a series of recommendations” that the centers had to continue to comply with. It refers to the fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the end of the pandemic in May 2023.
The social room of the TSXG, however, remembers that the work and/or services contract ends once those specific causes that motivate it are concluded. If it continues beyond that date, it is considered that “structural, not temporary tasks” are being carried out and the contracts have become indefinite. According to Justice, with the pandemic over and the emergency deactivated since the end of 2021 in Galicia, it cannot be argued in 2024, to put an end to them, that the special or temporary situation that had motivated them has ended. And the dismissals are, therefore, unfair. The Galician high court thus confirms the rulings of the social courts.
Mar Peteira, from the Autonomous Administration section of the CIG union, emphasizes that many of the positions with which the residences were reinforced due to COVID “were structural” in reality and, having fired these workers, it is evident that “they did not the staff arrives to cover the shifts.” “They were necessary; “We are at a minimum,” he protests. He also complains about the Xunta’s practice of “recourse absolutely everything”, even in situations such as that of the pregnant worker, in which the administration knows that it has no chance of winning. This, he says, lengthens the procedures to, for example, collect compensation.
Peteira considers that the layoffs are “in line with privatization and precariousness” that he attributes to the Department of Social Policy. He criticizes a recent decision to change the order that regulates the personnel who must attend the centers and eliminates the requirement that there be nurses 24 hours a day in the largest ones: “It is inconceivable in a residence with dependent people.” The department headed by Fabiola García has not submitted its assessment of the layoffs.
The dismissal of a pregnant woman, void
Among the sentences for the dismissals there is a case in which the Justice declares it null. It is that of a worker who was pregnant at the time they told her. The woman had signed a contract as a nurse on April 1, 2021 at the Pontevedra residence. She was, as in the other cases, linked to COVID, but the Xunta kept her in the position after declaring the end of the health emergency and later informed her that her contract would end on March 31, 2024. Since March 7, March she was on leave. The TSXG reasons, as in the dismissals of other workers, that the justification of the temporary nature of the contract had been lost with the end of the health emergency and that, consequently, its termination was “illegal.” And it is considered null and void because this is established in article 55.5 of the Workers’ Statute. In this way, it supports that the worker must be reinstated.
The rulings of the Superior Court of Galicia also imply that, in cases of unfair dismissals, compensation is higher than that corresponding to the simple termination of a contract for work or services. To a cleaning maid at the Residential Care Complex for People with Disabilities (CRAPD) of Vigo I, the compensation paid by Social Policy for “expiration of contract” was 857.74 euros, while the sentence indicates that it should be 1,729 .13 euros. In the case of a caregiver at the Care Center for People with Disabilities in A Coruña, the amount received was 2,324.46 euros, but the sentence raises it to 6,386.04 euros. Another caregiver at a facility in Redondela (Pontevedra) was compensated with 2,329.46 euros, while the judge indicates that, with an unfair dismissal, she is entitled to 4,106.53 euros.
Source: www.eldiario.es
