Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
Madrid’s court ordered an employer to pay 48,899.49 euro in compensation for dismissing an employee on the basis that they were running personal errands at work. The court also ruled that the decision by the company to terminate this worker was unjustified.
He had worked for the Madrid-based fire safety maintenance company since 2021. He was expected to achieve a daily minimum of 18 inspections. He was to receive a temporary allowance for production solely and only if he completed the 18 inspections. A further 12 euros would be added to his daily allowance if the threshold was exceeded. Nevertheless, he only carried out 18 inspections each day. He was far behind his co-workers who could carry out as much as 40 inspections daily.
The company hired private investigators when it discovered the discrepancy. The detectives who followed the employee throughout the day said that he went shopping during his working hours. “At 9.03am, he got into the vehicle and drove around until he arrived at the La Dehesa shopping centre in Alcalá de Henares, where he parked the vehicle and went into the shopping centre. He was in one shop from 10.19 until 10.24. After that, he moved on to another store where he spent 10.26-10.30. He drove to Carrefour and got into his vehicle. He was in the store from 10.42 until 10.51. “At 11.06, the man parked his car in a parking lot of an Azuqueca hypermarket and then drove away a few moments later towards Madrid.”
The rest of the day, the same routine of running errands while being absent from the office was repeated. He was walking his dog without his uniform at 12.55pm in the afternoon of 2 June 2023. The company fired him due to disciplinary reasons. However, the employee appealed.
The court partly upheld the claim, and declared that the dismissal was unjustified because the company had not met the legal deadline for penalising the employee of 60 days starting on the date it received notification of the disciplinary infraction.
