The Government also prevents the termination of temporary contracts, which will be suspended, to be resumed later.
This morning the Council of Ministers approved the ban on firing while the coronavirus crisis lasts. The Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has stated that the measure will apply from today, so it will not have retroactive effect. In particular, Díaz has stated that whenever there are economic, production, technical or organizational causes or due to force majeure (in this case, the force majeure is the impact of the coronavirus and, also, the measures put in place to contain it). ), dismissal will be prohibited. This implies that objective dismissal with the underlying argument of the coronavirus is prohibited.
"You cannot take advantage of COVID-19 to fire people," said the Minister of Labor. This is because, he has argued, the Government has already designed an alternative available to companies, temporary employment regulation files, ERTE due to force majeure, which are processed within a maximum period of five days. With these instruments, Díaz pointed out, "it is not necessary to fire anyone."
If it is possible to benefit from an ERTE due to the crisis, it will not be legitimate to apply layoffs. Furthermore, Díaz has defended that the use of ERTE favors the crisis being just a parenthesis for the country's economic activity.
The social package approved today by the Government also includes that temporary contracts cannot be terminated. These will be interrupted during the crisis, but will be resumed later, effectively lengthening their duration. In particular, temporary contracts, including training, relief and interim contracts, will remain in force until the health crisis ends.
These two measures are linked to the demands that the CC OO and UGT unions conveyed to the Government at the beginning of this week and that they presented yesterday at a press conference. They demanded the prohibition of dismissals or the toughening of dismissals, because they predicted one million layoffs during this month of March, three quarters of which would affect, according to their calculations, temporary contracts. The unions complained that the temporary employment regulation files had not fulfilled their mission of avoiding the dismissals of workers and urged the Executive to give a twist to the package of anti-crisis social measures.
Thirdly, the Government decided this morning to simplification of ERTE, in particular regarding the procedure that companies must follow to request it: it will be enough to fill out and send a simple form and the legal presumption of unemployment for workers will automatically be activated. At the same time, Díaz has stated that unemployment benefits associated with ERTE will begin to be recognized, which even reach workers who have not accumulated sufficient rights to access them, and who do not consume unemployment time: the accountant returns to zero after the ERTE. The processing of the ERTE will be very fast so that the benefits can also be collected quickly, the minister has assured, on April 10. The start date of the unemployment benefit will coincide with the moment of suspension of the contract or with the date communicated by the company.
Although Yolanda Díaz has also warned that all the ERTE that are being approved these days will be reviewed ex officio. The Labor Inspection will have an active role in the control of these procedures and will ensure the verification of the alleged causes, reserving sanctions and refunds for the amounts received by the companies in case of non-compliance: the employer may be sanctioned if the lack of compliance is detected. need for an ERTE. Díaz has stated that companies that have committed fraud will have to return all the money received, including unemployment benefits that the workers have received.
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