What
is a compensation day?
A compensation
day is another day off you generate when you work on a bank holiday here in
Barcelona. The idea is that you enjoy this day, with normal salary, on a day where
the service for your country are closed.
What
if the service does not close?
If
your project does have service all your round or on most of the bank holidays
here in Barcelona, you will have to organize the enjoyment of the compensation
day in mutual agreement with your project. This must be organized within a reasonable
time.
What
if I do not use it.
If
you do not enjoy the compensation generated on a bank holiday here in Barcelona
you will be working more hours than the maximum hours permitted in our collective
agreement per year, which are 1764 hours. This is calculated on basic of normal
working days per year, Monday to Friday, not including the vacations (23
working days or 32 calendar days) and the public bank holidays.
To
put it more simple, normally a week are 39 hours, and if there is a bank
holiday during the week, the hours should be 31 hours, (thanks to persistence
work on part of UGT, the short day will be moved to another day in the week if it
is on a bank holiday), so if you do not use the compensation day you have
generated that week, you will have worked 8 hours more than the normal.
Can
I lose the compensation day?
Technically,
yes you can. If the employer close due to loos of clients and/or bankruptcy, the
“FOGASA” will not pay you the extra hours you have generated, (compensation
days).
We
do not hope this will happen.
When
do I have to enjoy the compensation day?
This
is more complicated. The collective agreement does not state anything about
this, so it is necessary to have a look at the workers statute.
In
the employees statute article 35 it says that “By means of a collective
agreement or, failing that, an individual contract, a choice will be made
between paying the overtime hours in the amount set, which in no case may be
less than the value of the ordinary hour, or compensating them for equivalent
paid rest time. In the absence of an agreement in this regard, it will be
understood that the overtime hours performed must be compensated by rest within
the four months following their completion.”
So,
you will have to enjoy the compensation day within the next 4 months.
Do I
have to take the compensation days before the vacation days?
This
is an internal company policy signed by the unions CCOO and CSIF, together they
have the majority of the employees committee.
By
law there is nothing to support this policy. By law, the vacations have to be mutual
agreed between the employee and the employer and the employer cannot unilaterally
block the possibility to get to a mutual agreement regarding the vacations by
implementing an internal policy that states otherwise.
So,
according to our opinion, the legal answer will have to be no.
What
if the request to take the compensation day is continuously denied?
If
the project is justifying the denial of your request, they should at least give
you an alternative date, this is only logical, but there is nothing about this
in the internal policy. So, if this is the case you should ask for alternative
dates. And if your project doesn’t accept a request for enjoying the
compensation day within the following 4 months, you can try to request the
compensation day to be paid out with the payment according to the collective
agreement article 49.
What
if the project assigns me the compensation day?
Can
the project assign me the day to enjoy the compensation day? Technically yes. According
to the article 20 in the employees statue and the article 11 in our collective
agreement, it is in the power of the employer to organize the work, and the
article 5 in the employees statute says that you have to follow orders, unless
they are setting your health in risk. Also, if the service in your project is
closed on a non-bank holiday here in Barcelona, they can assign you the day of
with the use of a compensation day.
But
apart from that, we in UGT has always said to the company that when an employee
works on a bank holiday it is in the interest of the employer, so therefore the
compensation day should be enjoyed when it is in the interest of the employee.
