Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
Thursday, 6th February 2025 at 08:16
Under Spanish law, being on long-term medical leave is not enough to justify dismissal. In this case, it would be illegal. The reform brought about by Royal Decree Law 4/2020 on 18 February repealed Article 52.d), which listed the following grounds for dismissal as grounds of dismissal:
In July of last year, instead, the Spanish Government approved the revision of article 49.1.e, which was part of the same workers’ law, to eliminate the recognition that a worker’s permanent disability is a cause of termination.
It does not, however, mean that an employee on sick leave cannot be fired for any reason. The employer can still fire the employee even if he is on sick-leave, but not just because of it. When and how can you do this without violating labour law? There are 3 types of dismissal. Firstly, there is the objective dismissal which is the most popular and can be based on economic, organizational, technical, or production-related reasons.
Second, the type of dismissal known as disciplinary can terminate the employment relationship even if the employee is on sick leave. When an employee engages in serious misconduct such as unjustified and repeated absences, disobedience or indiscipline; verbal or bodily offences; intentional underperformance or any breach in contractual good faith (such as engaging in activities that are incompatible or delay recovery and return to the workplace), disciplinary dismissal may be imposed.
There is also the dismissal due to the company closing or contract expiration. If the sickness leave coincides with an end date for a temporary contract then the contract can’t be renewed.
The worker who is dismissed for these reasons will not be compensated. Instead, they will receive unemployment benefits up to the amount of time that the contributions were paid.
If there are any doubts as to the reasons of dismissal and it is deemed unjustified by the court, then the worker may take the case to court in order to get the dismissal decision reversed.
