More and more Spaniards have a hybrid employment contract with which companies establish certain days of teleworking. A very useful measure for those workers who have to take care of family members, live far from their workplace or simply have difficulties commuting to the office daily.
This is why the rights of remote workers are increasingly protected. As it demonstrates ruling 608/2026, of July 1, of the Supreme Courtwhich establishes the impossibility of the company changing the percentage of teleworking at convenience, without the consent of employees affected if they have a signed and current individual agreement.
To better understand what this ruling means for workers, the labor lawyer Ignacio de la Calzada has explained in a video on its social networks (@un_tio_legal_) how companies that want to modify the percentage of teleworking of their employees should proceed from now on. “They cannot change the agreed days without consent“, he assures.
The individual agreement will remain in force despite the expiration of the collective
The sentence responds to a problem generated among the employees of a company, to whom this I wanted to reduce the percentage of teleworking from 100% to 75% after the collective agreement expired. “Without asking, without negotiating and without signing anything new,” the lawyer explained. However, each worker had an individual agreement that was signed before said document.
Precisely, here lies the key behind the Supreme Court’s resolution, in the difference between the collective agreement and the individual teleworking agreement. “Expiring the first does not erase the second“, determines the lawyer, according to the provisions of the sentence. To this fact we must add the provisions of the article 8.1 of the remote work law.
This article establishes that any “modification of the conditions established in the remote work agreement, including the percentage of presence, must be the subject of an agreement between the company and the workerformalized in writing prior to its application.” Therefore, a new individual agreement should be made in case the company wants to change the conditions.
The company must negotiate a new individual agreement with the worker
Likewise, the Court denies the possibility for companies to allege the application of the article 41 of the Workers’ Statutewhich gives them the right to make substantial modifications to the working conditions in the event that “there are proven economic, technical, organizational or production reasons“. This is because it was considered that, in the specific case of the sentence, the consultation procedure provided for in said article was not respected.
“And it’s not worth disguising it as a reversibility. Returning to full presence is one thing and reducing your agreed percentage is another,” says Ignacio de la Calzada. This is especially relevant for thats workers who started in personbut who, later, ended up signing a remote work agreement.
This means that, if the worker has a signed individual teleworking agreement, This will not expire when the collective agreement expires. Therefore, if they want to modify the conditions, they must consult and negotiate with the employee themselves so that they sign a new agreement again.