The SEPE does not take this period into account, leaving the dismissed workers less time to collect this benefit, but there are many judgments recognizing this
The Supreme Court has the final say on the question of whether the period in which an employee is affected by a covid ERTE also serves to generate the right to unemployment benefits after various conflicting rulings on this. In the midst of the pandemic, in the spring of 2020, more than 3.6 million Spaniards were affected by a job suspension due to the general incarceration and the paralysis of the economy. Then the government came to the rescue of companies and workers and launched this mechanism which proved to be a great success, stopping the destruction of millions upon millions of jobs and thereby preventing unemployment from skyrocketing, as had happened in other previous crises. .
The Department of Labor was at all times responsible for proclaiming that the workers were protected from the pandemic and that they would keep all their rights intact. However, now that there are many people who, after being laid off by their company, go on the unemployment lists, they realize that this is not the case: that by the time they were in ERTE they did not receive the two years of benefit that came with them. would match if they had not been suspended, something that causes many lawsuits.
This is due to the fact that when the SEPE resolves unemployment benefits on layoffs, the time they were in ERTE does not count towards the unemployment benefits; that is, if a person has spent three months, a year or even two years in ERTE because of the pandemic, this period did not entitle them to unemployment and therefore they have this time left, as El Confidencial found out this Thursday.
To generate the maximum two years of unemployment awarded when someone is fired, they must have contributed continuously for the past six years. Therefore, in the event of unemployment, the vast majority of the more than 4.1 million people who have been in ERTE as a result of the pandemic will not be able to reach two years of unemployment as four months of benefits are added for each year of work.
But there is one exception: the months of March to September 2020 are considered “exceptional” in the law and for unemployment purposes it is as if they did not exist, so at that time the workers who were in ERTE were yes. also contributed to unemployment, according to SEPE sources explained to this paper. The regulations changed with the new decree that came into effect on October 1, and from then on, although the so-called counter was still kept at zero (the benefit collection did not deduct the aforementioned months), and the fact that they were not time to contribute to access the benefit, the period in ERTE no longer generated that entitlement to future unemployment that would have matched if he had worked. This was also confirmed to this newspaper by Lluís Casas, a lawyer from CC OO’s legal office in Catalonia, who had a trial on this matter exactly this Thursday and there they explained this exception that the Ministry of Labor itself is not aware of. height.
The complaints that have already brought this SEPE criterion to court are based on the fact that the government-approved royal decrees in a pandemic stated that the time in ERTE “is considered an effective quoted period for all purposes”, with which is understood to mean that it must be clear that it also generates the right to unemployment. From the public body, however, they state that they apply the general rule, which makes it clear that they contribute to a social security benefit such as a retirement pension or temporary incapacity for work, but “it makes no sense that this period serves to collect unemployment if you do not work.
There are already several verdicts, the vast majority for the workers, but also some against. Even this issue has already reached several higher courts. For example, in the summer of 2021, the Supreme Court of the Basque Country ruled in favor of an employee’s right to generate unemployment during the period in ERTE; on the contrary, the Supreme Court of the Community of Madrid and that of Aragon agree with the SEPE. Therefore, this issue has already been submitted to the Supreme Court, which is to dictate a doctrine in the coming months.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
