Workers’ Rights and Collective Representation in Companies

Posted on Aug 24, 2024 in Law & Jurisprudence

1. Workers’ Rights in Company Participation

Rights of Workers: Right of employee participation in the enterprise, association, free association, collective bargaining, to take collective action, to strike, lockout, and assembly.

The representation of workers as a group translates into two types:

  • The Collective Representation Unit: This is done through staff representatives and works councils, who represent the entire workforce.
  • The Union Collective Representation: This is done through unions (e.g., UGT) and only affects the members of such unions.

2. Unitary Collective Representation of Workers

Delegates Plan:

  • Between 6 and 10 workers, representation is decided by majority.
  • Between 10 and 30 workers, the presence of a staff officer is required.
  • Between 31 and 49 workers, there will be 3 staff representatives.

Committee of Companies:

  • From 50 to 100 employees: 5 members
  • 101 to 250: 9 members
  • 251 to 500: 13 members
  • 501 to 750: 17 members
  • 751 to 1000: 21 members
  • +1001: 2 members per 1000, max. 75

Responsibilities of Staff Delegates and Committee Members of Companies:

  1. Receive information quarterly:
    • Evolution of the economic sector to which it belongs.
    • Status of production and sales.
    • Probable development of employment within the company.
  2. Receive the basic copy of contracts, notice of the extensions…
  3. Know the company accounts.
  4. Issue a report (by the employer) to implement its decisions:
    • Restructuring the workforce.
    • Reductions in workdays.
    • Training plans.
    • Review of systems of organization.
    • Studies of time.
  5. Issue a report when the merger, absorption, or modification of legal status affects the incidence involving employment size.
  6. Know models of employment contracts.
  7. Know quarterly statistics on absenteeism and its causes.
  8. Exercise: Surveillance in compliance with labor standards and monitoring and control of hygiene.
  9. Participate in the social construction management company established for the benefit of workers.
  10. Collaborate with company management.
  11. Inform their representatives.
  12. Have a suitable local to develop their business and one or more boards.
  13. Duties: Keep professional secrecy even after leaving office.

Guarantees of Employee Representatives:

  • If they are punished for serious or very serious offenses, they have a dossier contradictory opened.
  • Priority to stay with the company in cases of suspension or termination of contracts.
  • Do not be fired or punished for exercising their functions or within one year.
  • Cannot be discriminated against.
  • Freedom of expression in terms of their representation.

Unions:

Rights which include the right to freedom of association:

  • The right to form unions.
  • The right to join a union or not.
  • Rights of each member to freely elect their representatives.

Who can join a union:

  • Employed persons.
  • Unemployed.
  • Government workers.
  • Disabled.
  • Self-employed workers.
  • Pensioners who do not have workers at their service.

Those who are excluded from the right of union membership:

  • Members of the armed forces (military).
  • Judges, magistrates, and prosecutors.

Specific Partnerships:

The members of the security bodies and forces are governed by specific regulations.

Business Associations

Business associations are private associations of individual entrepreneurs or companies to defend their interests. Their internal structure and functioning must be democratic. They are defined by two basic factors: economic sector or branch of activity and territory in which they operate.

The Collective Agreement

The collective agreement is an agreement freely adopted between representatives of workers and employers, the result of negotiations carried out between both, to regulate working conditions, productivity, and industrial peace.

The Scope of Collective Agreements:

  • Functional
  • Territorial (geographical area: local, provincial, etc.)
  • Staff (to whom the Convention applies)

The Content of Collective Agreements:

Shall regulate matters of economic, labor union. Minimum:

  • The parties agree that the collective agreement.
  • The personal, functional, territorial, and temporal.
  • Policies and procedures for non-application payment system established by the Convention.
  • Form and conditions of termination of the contract and notice period.
  • Appointment of a joint committee representing the two negotiating parties.

Standing:

  • The enterprise agreements or lower level: the works council, staff representatives or union representatives.
  • The top-level agreements with companies are entitled to negotiate:
    • The most representative trade unions at the state, autonomous community level and those with 10% of members of works councils.
    • Business associations in the geographical and functional scope of the agreement have 10% of businesses and give jobs to 10% of the workers concerned.