Rights and responsabilities of the employees in Spain.

November 2010

Law passed on March 10, 1980, in accordance with the mandate lait down in Article 35.2 of the Spanish Constitution. It fundamentally altered Spanish labour legislation to suit the political and socio-economic situation which emerged in the 1970.

Except in strictly trade union matters, it is now the centrepiece of Spanish labour law. It differs from the Italian Worker’s Statute of 1970, from which it took its name, in that it concerns the central aspects of the employment relationship, worker’s participation and generally applicable collective bargaining.

Compared with earlier Spanish labour legislation, it not only updated the industrial relations system but also made the regulations governing the contract of employment, mobility and termination of the contract of employment more flexible; permanently established workforce representatives as a means of worker’s participation and consolidated the status of collective agreements, as opposed to Labour Ordinances, as the principal source of industry-wide and occupational provisions.

The Workers' Statute has been amended several times (1983, 1984 and, above all, 1994, the year of the labour legislation reform), usually to continue adapting labour regulations to changes in the production system and to strengthen the position of the most representative trade unions in the Spanish industrial relation system.

Article 4. Labour rights

Workers have as basic rights, to the content and scope that for each of them is showed in the specific rules, those of:

1. Work and free choice of profession or trade;

2. Free association;

3. Collective negotiation;

4. Adopting of measures of collective action;

5. Strike;

6. Meeting;

7. Participation in the company.

Article 4. Labour rights As far as work is concerned, workers are entitled:

1. To the actual occupation; 2. The promotion and training on the job; 3. Not to be discriminated against for employment or, once employed, for

reasons of sex, marital status, age within the limit set by this law, race social status, religion or political ideas, affiliation or not to union, and because of language within the Spanish State.

No person shall be discriminated against because of physical, mental and sensory illness, provided tart they are able to cope fulfil their functions in their work or job;

4. To body integrity and adequate health and hygiene policy; 5. To respect their privacy and due consideration for their dignity, including

protection against verbal or physical abuse of sexual nature; 6. The punctual perception of the remuneration agreed upon or legally

established; 7. To the individual exercise of those actions arising from his job contract; 8. To all other derived specifically from the employment contract.

Article 5. Labour duties. Workers have as basic duties::

1. To comply with the specific obligations of their jobs, according to the rules of good faith and diligence;

2. To comply with health an safety measures taken;

3. To comply with the orders and instructions of the employer in the regular exercise of his or her function;

4. Not to compete with the activity of the company, under the terms established en this law;

5. To contribute to improving productivity;

6. Those arising, if any, from the respective work contracts.