Holidays: the Supreme Court upholds the collective agreement of the company

The ELA union challenged the agreement alleging that it introduced criteria and restrictions not provided for in the sectoral collective agreement, arguing that it constituted a substantial change in working conditions and that it also altered the terms of the collective agreement without following the legally required procedure.

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in its entirety and upheld the ruling of the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country. Firstly, it rejected the allegation that there had been a substantial change in working conditions, as it had not been demonstrated which holiday planning system applied before the challenged agreement.

The Court points out that, to determine whether there is a substantial change, it is essential to compare the situation before and after the change; however, in this case, such a comparison could not be made due to a lack of sufficient evidence.

Secondly, the Court dismissed the possibility that the company had unlawfully altered the provisions of the collective agreement or that it should have resorted to the procedure for the repeal of the collective agreement provided for in article 82.3 of the Workers' Statute. The ruling emphasizes that the state collective agreement for private security companies simply establishes the existence of a rotating holiday shift and expressly refers to an agreement between the company and the legal representatives of the workers to specify its implementation and planning.

On this basis, the Court concludes that the holiday agreement in question does not contradict the collective agreement but develops aspects that it had left open for negotiation at the company level, such as the criteria for assigning holiday periods, the lottery systems, or the organization of shifts. Therefore, it considers legitimate for the company and the works council to agree on more specific rules that regulate the enjoyment of holidays, as long as they do not contravene the existing provisions of the collective agreement.

The ruling is particularly interesting because it reaffirms that company collective agreements can complement and specify issues that the sectoral collective agreement expressly leaves to negotiation at a lower level, without this necessarily implying a substantial modification of working conditions or an inapplicability of the sectoral agreement.

It also emphasizes the importance of accurately documenting pre-existing conditions when attempting to contest a company's measure for a substantial alteration of working conditions.