The National Court recognizes the right of contact center workers to stop five minutes for every hour in front of the screen

The workers of the contact center sector have managed to win a judicial battle against the employers to recognize their right to stop five minutes for each hour of monotorized screen work, especially in the case of split days. The sentence, dated October 10, 2019.

The National Court has given the reason to the employees, who demanded to be able to stop five minutes, not only for every uninterrupted hour of monitored work, but also for the sections that, although discontinuous, accumulated, exceeded 60 minutes. The ruling gives them the reason in the collective dispute, because in this way “the health of workers is guaranteed more effectively”.

Interpretation of the agreement

The collective conflict arises as a result of the interpretation of the second agreement applicable to the Contact Center sector, a sector traditionally known as telemarketing, and which was signed between unions and employers in May 2017.

Article 54 of the agreement establishes that, in addition to the ten-minute break per continuous day (traditionally known as ‘sandwich break’), operations personnel who develop their activity on data display screens are entitled to a break of five minutes “for every hour of effective work.”

However, in spite of the literal precept, the employers understood that workers who made split days (for example, four and a half hours, rest, and three and a half hours) could not enjoy rest for the periods of time that they did not reach 60 minutes, nor could these periods be accumulated at the time after the breaks. So, the company demanded that the hours worked be uninterrupted to give the right to rest, without taking into account the distribution of the day or the hours of the workers.

It is not necessary to deal with uninterrupted hours

The ruling of the National Court concludes that, making a literal interpretation of the agreement, the rest must be calculated for each hour worked “effective”, regardless of whether it is developed in “continuous or part-time regime”. That is, a worker can stop to eat, return to work, and continue with the computation until work time is reached, without resetting the counter in a matter of breaks.

Thus, the ruling is allowed, a better “guarantee for workers’ health”, which is the purpose of the agreement.

The National Court also recalls that assuming a different interpretation of this provision violates the proper way of interpreting collective agreements, which are contracts of a mixed nature, that is, contractual, but at the same time with regulatory effect.

Under this prism, the court recalls that the concepts that are not developed in the agreement cannot be interpreted, as indicated in article 1,283 of the Civil Code, giving rise to “different things and different cases” than those provided by the interested parties. Thus, if the agreement does not specify anything about uninterrupted hours, nothing can be established in this regard, and all minutes worked in the day must be considered for effective hours, regardless of their distribution in the day.

Against the decision of the Hearing it is possible, however, appeal to the Supreme Court.