The Audiencia Nacional sentences a company to reimburse workers for meal tickets that were suppressed during confinement.

The Audiencia Nacional sentenced a company to reimburse workers for the meal vouchers it had suppressed during the lockout.

The workers have the right to receive the meal tickets during the state of alarm caused by the Covid-19, without the company being able to unilaterally suppress it under the argument of adjusting the recharges corresponding to the days between March 14 and April 30, 2020 as a necessary measure to alleviate the impact that the pandemic situation is having on the business. This is established in a recent ruling of the Social Chamber of the Audiencia Nacional (ruling 114/2020, of December 9, Rec. 163/2020).

The judges underline that if the company intended to modify what had been recognized as a social benefit, it should have followed the procedure provided for the substantial modification of working conditions. In other words, the company’s decision to eliminate the meal tickets during the state of alarm could not have been made by circumventing the mechanisms legally provided for the modification of working conditions, insists the Chamber.

This benefit had to be respected even for the workers who teleworked during the confinement. The way in which it was recognized, the workers were entitled to receive the restaurant tickets for each day actually worked, regardless of whether it was performed in physical presence or by teleworking.

It is very significant, the magistrates point out, that in the test pilot of teleworking it was expressly agreed that it would not entail any variation in the working conditions of the worker.

A right of a collective nature already incorporated in a definitive way to the workers’ rights cannot be suppressed unilaterally by the company, if it is not by agreement between employer and worker or through the procedure of substantial modification of the working conditions; or even through its neutralization by application of compensation and absorption, but in no case, – and this is the important thing -, unilaterally.

Exceptionally, the judges accept, the modification of an agreement could be admitted if the situation existing when the agreement was signed has been modified (rebus sic stantibus clause), but this possibility must be interpreted restrictively.

The National Court’s upholding of the claim means declaring the nullity of the measure adopted by the company of suppressing the meal tickets during the state of alarm, – for being a substantial modification of the working conditions not adopted by the legal channels, and the nullity of the deduction of the amounts corresponding to these tickets, for the days from March 14 to 31 and the month of April 2020.