The Sagrada Família, condemned for firing an employee when she lost protection for being a mother

BarcelonaThe High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has sentenced the foundation that promotes the Sagrada Família for firing an employee the day after the end of her protective period due to having a child. The judges ruled that the termination of her contract was void and that the foundation's conduct violated her fundamental rights to equality and freedom from discrimination. The ruling emphasizes that the 12 months following the birth of a child guarantee special protection, and during this period, dismissals without objective cause are void and not merely unfair.

The managers of the Barcelona church had justified the employee's dismissal by a reorganization of the communications department's work and, above all, by economic reasons related to the decline in visitor numbers during the pandemic. However, the TSJC considered that these reasons were insufficient to consider the dismissal fair. The judges therefore conclude that the fact that her contract was terminated the very day after the end of this protection period shows that the decision to dismiss her had been made while the employee was still protected.

Gender discrimination

According to the ruling made public this Monday by the law firm Colectivo Ronda, the ruling also considers that the right to equality and freedom from gender discrimination was violated, since the employee's dismissal was separate from another group of employees who had been dismissed six months earlier. In this way, the Sagrada Família Foundation allegedly attempted to avoid both maternity protection and the legal obligation to implement a collective dismissal. Thus, the entity committed fraud, since it terminated the positions of 13 people between June and November 2021, exceeding the threshold that requires companies to process dismissals collectively rather than individually.

The Col·lectiu Ronda, which led the defense of the dismissal, considers the Sagrada Família's behavior toward the employee to have been "particularly inconsiderate and discriminatory." Members of the cooperative's legal team regret that an institution created to manage the construction of the Sagrada Familia temple made a decision "deeply influenced by the worker's status as a woman and recent mother, thus violating one of the most basic fundamental rights enshrined in our European legislation and jurisprudence."