They sue the public company Salvamento Marítimo for not respecting workers' rest hours

A senior special operations technician, backed by the CSIF union – the majority among public employees – has sued the public company Salvamento Marítimo for not respecting staff rest hours and failing to compensate for overtime, which he considers It represents a substantial modification of working conditions that is not justified and without notifying the workers or their representatives.

According to the lawsuit filed before the Social Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and the complaint registered with the Labor Inspection, to which EL MUNDO has had access, everything changed this summer, when the company decided without prior notice to change the rules of game of these workers, who are dedicated to planning, coordinating and monitoring rescue, prevention and anti-pollution operations.

Until then and since 2007, all the technicians that Salvamento asked to be mobilized for an emergency (never related to the rescue of people, but to stranded ships, floods, fires, fuel extraction and fight against pollution) requested through the employee portal authorization to travel. If the transportation and accommodation did not take place in a maritime unit of the public company, then the technician contacted the El Corte Inglés travel agency to make the reservations.. Every day, the technician prepares a report with the activity carried out and the hours allocated to it and, upon his return, he makes a settlement of the expenses he had had to assume (tolls, food allowances, etc.) and requests authorization for it to be carried out. They compensated him for the extra hours worked, so that for each extra hour worked during the trip, they gave him 2 hours of rest -unless they were at night or on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, in which case the compensation would be 2 and a half hours- , as stated in the Collective Agreement to which the worker is assigned.

Furthermore, according to the agreement, working time begins counting from the moment the worker leaves the base or home and until he or she returns, and working time is understood not only as the ordinary day and travel time, but also “one third of the rest periods due to being away from home”, which would then be returned to him during free hours along with the corresponding amount for the extra hours.

This summer, the complainant technician, who works at the strategic base to combat pollution in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, received an email on June 16 asking him to support the Navy during the acceptance tests of the Isaac submarine. Peral, for which he would have to travel to Cartagena from the 20th to the 22nd of that month. Upon his return, on the 26th, he presented a settlement of expenses and a report of hours worked, but the latter was rejected.. The employee was given the option to “repeat the timesheet deleting the rest third and submit it again.”

“Since 2008, senior special operations technicians in Maritime Rescue logistics bases have been enjoying compensation in free time for two concepts: overtime and rest time.. For this reason, it is evident that the company unilaterally, without carrying out any procedure and without justifying cause, has proceeded permanently and not temporarily to substantially modify the rights recognized in the applicable Collective Agreement, both in which refers to the compensation of overtime generated during mobilizations, as well as the consideration of effective working time for travel and one third of the rest periods for being away from home, as well as the payment of subsistence allowances. and travel expenses for such mobilizations,” the lawsuit states.

7,500 hours to compensate

Due to this change in criteria, CSIF estimates that in total there are about a thousand work days, the equivalent of 7,500 hours, that have not been compensated to the workers.

Given the possibility that the company has changed its criteria and now considers that these technicians cannot continue benefiting from these compensations included in the agreement, the complainant recalls that the jurisprudential criterion of the “most beneficial condition” must prevail, which implies that a company cannot unilaterally eliminate advantages that it offered to workers on an ongoing basis and that have been consolidated as part of the contractual relationship. “We would find ourselves facing a more beneficial condition, maintained voluntarily, unilaterally, peacefully and permanently by the company, so the only way to proceed with its suppression would have been through the procedure regulated in article 41 of the Labor Statute,” relating to breaches of the agreement.

Both the complainant and CSIF defend that the company has substantially modified the working conditions without giving 15 days' notice to the employees or their representatives, and without justifying it for economic, technical, organizational or productive reasons, for which they ask the Court to declare annul your decision and compensate the worker.

In Spain there are only eight technicians of this type: two in Tenerife, one in Cartagena (who works with an area manager), one in Castellón (together with an area manager), one in Seville, two in La Coruña and one last in Santander. All are governed by the Collective Agreement for ground personnel of the Maritime Rescue and Safety Society, which stipulates that the working day must last 37.5 hours per week – with a maximum annual count of 1,711 hours.

In addition to the legal claim, CSIF has filed a complaint with the Labor Inspection, “given the impossibility of family conciliation and the right to rest that occurs when having to be permanently available for possible emergencies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and not establishing on-call shifts, which results in an increase in work pressure and a decrease in performance due to lack of regular rest,” they lament.

The union considers that to guarantee rest without entailing an additional cost for the company, the ideal would be to establish a shift system, “ensuring the presence of a technician available 24 hours a day, on alternate weeks, at each logistics base,” but according to The public company union has rejected this proposal “understanding that there are not a sufficient number of emergencies.”

The union recalls that in past years some technicians have attended up to six emergencies, “spending more than 150 days away from home,” without the company wanting to compensate them for the overtime worked.