Employment Contracts, Salaries, and Employee Rights
Employment Contracts, Salaries, and Employee Rights
Salary and Payroll
Salary is the total economic benefit in money or in kind, including:
- The base salary rate, set by the working time.
- Salary supplements: Fixed according to the worker’s personal conditions, the work done, their status, and company results.
Payroll is the receipt of wages or salary, as per the official model or collective agreement/company covenant.
- Total compensation includes total earnings, including overtime.
- Proportion of extra payments: (base salary + age) x 2 / 12
The total base 2 = base 1 + overtime.
Paid Leave
- Fifteen days for marriage.
- Two days for a child’s birth, or the death, accident, serious illness, or hospitalization of second-degree relatives (consanguinity or affinity).
- One day for moving residence.
- Time required for voting or fulfilling public/personal duties.
- For union office or staff representation (as established by law or agreement).
- For breastfeeding a child under nine months (mother or father; if both work, one gets a half-hour daily work reduction).
Vacation
Vacation leave is determined by individual or collective agreement but must be at least thirty calendar days. Calendar days include Sundays and holidays, unlike working days.
Termination of Employment
- Worker’s resignation: Leaving without notice is considered post abandonment, a breach of contract.
- Redundancy: Based on economic, technical, organizational, or production reasons.
- Objective dismissal: Worker’s incompetence, failure to adapt to technical changes, absences.
- Disciplinary dismissal: Direct breach of contract, including:
- Repeated/unjustified attendance or punctuality issues.
- Indiscipline or disobedience.
- Verbal or physical offenses against the employer.
- Breach of contract and good faith.
- Reduced continued labor.
- Habitual drunkenness or addiction.
- Harassment of any kind.
Collective Bargaining
Collective bargaining is a formal negotiation, an exchange of offers and counteroffers to find a mutually acceptable solution. The law mandates resolving industrial relations conflicts through collective bargaining between worker representatives and the employer (or their representatives).
Worker representatives include: committees, staff representatives, union representatives, trade unions, federations, associations. Employer representatives include: the employer, their representatives, and business associations, federations, and confederations. Agreements may regulate economic, labor, and welfare matters.
Worker Representation
- Staff Representatives: Companies with 10-50 employees have one to three representatives.
- Company Committees: Companies with two or more workplaces under 50 workers may form a joint committee.
- Business associations
- Independent entrepreneurs
Eligible voters are company employees over 16 with at least one month’s seniority. Candidates must be 18 and have at least six months’ seniority.
Duties of Delegates and Committees
- Gather information on company progress.
- Understand contract types.
- Ensure compliance with labor and social security obligations.
- Inform constituents.
Key Terms
- Disputes
- Affecting workers’ general interests, originating within employer-worker relations.
- Elections
- Designation by vote for a fee or commission.
- Employee Representatives
- Employees with various powers to perform assigned functions.
- EWC (Works Council)
- Represents all employees to defend their interests.
- Electoral College
- A group of voters in a district, site, or company.
- Strike
- Temporary work stoppage, legally requiring 5 days’ notice.
- Collective Bargaining Agreement
- A source of law from joint regulation by worker and employer representatives.
- Strike Committee
- A group (maximum 12 workers) affected by the strike.
Types of Contracts
| Indefinite | Temporary |
|---|---|
| Indefinite contract (regular) | Training contract (for training) |
| Contract building of permanent contracts (for groups with integration difficulties) | Training contract (in practice) |
| Subsidized permanent labor contract | Causal contract (for work or service) |
| Contract of indefinite duration for people with disabilities | Causal contract (for reasons of production) |
| Permanent part-time contract | Contract causal (De interim) |
| Contract for intermittent permanent jobs | Contract causal (relay) |
| Contract causal (Unemployed (victims of gender violence)) | |
| Promotion of employment contract (for people with disabilities) | |
| Promotion of employment contract (Replacement for participation retirement age) | |
| Temporary part-time contract |
Indefinite hiring of workers from groups with employment difficulties:
- Unemployed youth (16-30).
- Unemployed women in under-represented occupations.
- Unemployed for over 6 months.
- Over 45 years old.
- People with disabilities.