Long-term temporary workers flood the European courts with complaints against Spain.

BrusselsThe European justice system has contradicted the Spanish courts on several occasions and has always agreed with long-term interim workers who have denounced the irregularity of their employment contracts. The latest case is this Thursday's ruling on a case involving a worker in the Community of Madrid by the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which confirmed that Spanish legislation does not guarantee, in practice, that the "abuse" suffered by these types of public workers by administrations everywhere is avoided.

Although this position is neither binding nor definitive, the CJEU usually rules in the same direction as the Advocate General, and on at least two previous occasions, the Luxembourg court has sided with public workers who string together one temporary contract after another. In contrast, the Spanish court has ruled the opposite way in complaints filed by long-term temporary workers and, therefore, has sided with the public administrations and considers that these public workers cannot automatically become civil servants, as Luxembourg had pointed out.

In this context, long-term temporary workers have opted to file a flood of complaints to the European Court of Justice in the hope that it will continually rule in their favor, to the point of forcing Spain to reform its legislation or take measures to prevent this "abuse" noted by the CJEU itself. In fact, the European Commission has already opened a sanctioning file in Spain for that reason.

At this time, the European Court of Justice has already ruled on at least two complaints filed by several long-term temporary workers from different public administrations. And, apart from the ongoing case on which the Advocate General of the CJEU ruled this Thursday, Luxembourg has already accepted six other complaints for processing, according to the CGT.

In a statement, the union describes the wave of complaints against Spain for long-term temporary workers as an "unprecedented judicial offensive in Europe against the abuse of temporary employment" in administrations across the country. "The admission for processing [of the six new cases of long-term temporary workers] demonstrates that the case has legal ground," the CGT welcomes in the same statement.

Brussels and Luxembourg close ranks against Spain

The union believes the European Commission is not doing enough to pressure Spain and accuses it of "inaction." However, the European Commission has already reacted to the initial rulings of the CJEU against the State and joined forces with Luxembourg to force Spain to comply with European legislation and jurisprudence. Thus, Brussels has strongly spoken out against Spanish regulations and Spain's lack of measures to remedy the situation faced by thousands of public sector workers.

Specifically, Brussels is urging the State to once and for all protect "public sector workers against the abusive use of successive fixed-term contracts." If Spain does not take action, it risks multi-million-pound fines from Brussels. Furthermore, the European Commission asserts that it has already taken into account, when opening a case, "the regulatory changes" made by Spain in recent years and asserts that "they still do not sufficiently address the problems detected." Thus, it contradicts the arguments of the Spanish government, which claims that the legal reforms do comply with EU law.

Pressure from the European institutions on Spain is growing, both in regard to the avalanche of complaints from long-term temporary workers and the verdicts in Luxembourg and the disciplinary proceedings opened by Brussels. Thus, the EU is insisting by every means that Spain reform its labor regulations or at least take measures to prevent the situation of thousands of long-term temporary workers, and there is no reason to believe it will stop until it achieves this.