According to the universality of social security, labor rights are inalienable
The Public Prosecutor’s Office asked the Constitutional Court to declare unenforceable article 251 of the Substantive Labor Code, which excludes workers from family businesses from paying severance pay.
It should be noted that family businesses are considered those that have as part of their strategic vision ensuring that successive generations provide continuity to the commercial establishment, its management and control.
In a concept sent to the magistrates, Attorney Margarita Cabello Blanco highlighted that all workers have the right to enjoy unemployment benefits, so the exclusion of employees from family businesses is “contrary to the principle of universality of social security and inalienability of labor rights.”
According to the Constitutional Court, article 251 of the Substantive Labor Code establishes the conditions for the payment of unemployment benefits to workers who voluntarily retire or are dismissed for just cause. This article excluded from this benefit artisans who did not employ more than five permanent workers outside the family.
In 2020, the Court declared literal C of article 251 unenforceable, arguing that it violated the principle of equality and the right to decent work. Likewise, this article establishes the conditions for the payment of unemployment benefits to workers who voluntarily retire or are dismissed for just cause.
Literal C of this article excluded from this benefit companies that did not employ more than five permanent workers outside the family.. However, in 2020, the Court declared literal c) of article 251 unenforceable, arguing that it violated the principle of equality and the right to decent work of artisans. The Court considered that there was no objective and reasonable reason to differentiate artisans from other workers who were entitled to unemployment benefits..
Likewise, the head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office recalled that in previous rulings the Plenary Chamber of the Court declared the unenforceability of similar norms and allowed severance pay to be recognized for accidental or transitory workers and artisans, under the argument that it is a component of social security that must be recognized to all employees without any discrimination.
Finally, the entity stated that the refusal to recognize severance pay for a group of employees ignores articles 13, 18 and 53 of the Constitution, which establish the principle of equality, the right to work in decent conditions and the minimum labor principles.