Paid leave for adverse weather: who is entitled to it and who must pay for it

BarcelonaThe severe windstorm that has been battering Catalonia this Thursday has led to the suspension of educational and university activities, as well as a recommendation from the Catalan government to take extreme precautions, avoid non-essential travel, and opt for teleworking. This scenario, in which an authority issues recommendations, limitations, or prohibitions on mobility, creates rights and obligations for workers—such as having paid leave or working remotely when possible—and also for companies—paying for this leave or facilitating teleworking. All of this is covered in Article 37.3.g) of the Workers' Statute, which states that employees "may be absent" from work for up to four days "with the right to remuneration" if they are unable to attend their workplace due to the authorities' directives regarding the weather. However, this right generates an economic cost that raises the following question: who should bear it?

Leave for meteorological phenomena is relatively new. It was added to Article 37 in November 2024 by royal decree, prompted by the effects of the isolated high-altitude depression (DANA) that left 228 dead in the Valencian Community. At that time, organizations such as PIMEC, the Catalan employers' association for small and medium-sized enterprises, already warned that the cost could not fall exclusively on companies, since it is the administration that invokes the right but does not assume the direct cost, as it does with other paid leave.

The company, responsible for the cost

Fifteen months have passed since that storm, but the debate over who should pay the labor costs arising from these events remains unresolved. However, paid leave due to weather-related causes is now a right equivalent to that which accrues when an employee gets married, experiences the death, accident, or serious illness of a family member, or moves. These leaves differ from others also recognized by the Workers' Statute precisely because of the cost-sharing arrangement. In the case of temporary disability or the birth and care of a child, the cost of the leave is shared between the company and Social Security. Self-employed workers do not have this right because they are not employed by others. How is this right exercised?

The right is exercised when public authorities, as the Generalitat did yesterday, recommend or restrict movement due to adverse weather conditions. Furthermore, the Catalan government published an instruction yesterday that, in itself, serves as additional justification, since the Ministry of Labor directly cited Article 37.3.g), stating that it applied "to the situation described." In fact, in response to this announcement, the UGT union in Catalonia demanded that all companies immediately apply the article in question, and reminded them of their legal obligation to guarantee the protection of their workforce and to adopt all possible preventative measures. According to Rafa Guerrero, the general secretary of the CCOO union at Seat, since this is a relatively new issue – since November 2024 – statements like this one from the Generalitat provide certainty and protection for workers. "As with all legally binding regulations, they must be interpreted and have a certain degree of ambiguity. The important thing is the origin, which is the DANA (isolated high-altitude depression), and that the aim is to prevent the same thing from happening again," he explains to ARA.

In the case of Seat, the company decided to halt the activity planned for this Thursday. The legal mechanism is different—the worker is not exercising a right—since the company stops, but the staff is paid as if they had worked, so the resulting cost also falls solely on the company.

What do the employers' associations say?

The employers' association Pimec already expressed its position in December 2024, after the approval of the royal decree that added meteorological causes to the Statute of Autonomy. In a statement, it called for "foresight and shared responsibility" from the administration to prevent society in general, and SMEs in particular, from "bearing the consequences and costs of climate change," a challenge that requires firm commitments from all affected parties. Therefore, it urged the deployment of agile regulatory mechanisms that allow companies to adapt their preventative measures to the new climate reality. Following Thursday's wind event, Pimec's president, Antoni Cañete, called for "awareness" to prevent businesses from having to bear all the costs. He stated this in an interview on RAC1, where he insisted that a plan must be developed to avoid harming the viability and competitiveness of SMEs. "The party can't be paid for by the usual suspects, which are businesses, and especially small and medium-sized enterprises and the self-employed, who often have costs they can't afford," he said.