Workers in non-essential services must be granted a compulsory paid leave of absence that can be recuperated.

This measure will not apply to the activities and cases listed in the annex to the regulation, nor to employees already working remotely or employees of those companies that have requested or are applying a suspension ERTE and to whom a suspension ERTE is authorized during the validity of the permit provided for in this Royal Decree-Law.

The Government has approved Royal Decree-Law 10/2020, effective as of the date of its publication, which establishes a mandatory recoverable paid leave between March 30 and April 9, 2020, inclusive, for workers who provide services in companies and institutions, both public and private, whose activity has not been paralyzed by the declaration of the state of alarm.

However, workers are exempted from the scope of application:

• Providing services in the sectors classified as essential in the annex to the standard.
• Providing services in the divisions or production lines whose activity corresponds to the sectors classified as essential in the aforementioned annex.
• Hired by (i) those companies that have requested or are applying a temporary suspension employment regulation plan and (ii) those that are authorized to apply a temporary suspension employment regulation plan during the term of the recoverable paid leave.
• Who are on sick leave due to temporary disability or whose contract is suspended for other legally established reasons.
• That they can continue to perform their activity normally by means of teleworking or any of the non face-to-face modalities of service provision.

The regulation of recoverable paid leave is summarized below:

• Workers will retain the right to the remuneration that would have corresponded to them on an ordinary basis, including base salary and salary supplements.
• The recovery of working hours will be effective from the day following the end of the state of alarm until December 31, 2020. This recovery must be negotiated in a consultation period opened for this purpose between the company and the legal representatives of the workers, which will have a maximum duration of 7 days.
• The regulation provides for the mechanisms for the appointment of the workers’ representatives and the consultation period. During the consultation period, the parties must negotiate in good faith, with a view to reaching an agreement.
• The agreement reached may regulate the recovery of all or part of the working hours, the minimum notice with which the employee must know the day and time of the resulting work, as well as the reference period for the recovery of the unused working time.
• If no agreement is reached during this consultation period, the company will notify the workers and the representative committee, within 7 days from the end of the consultation period, of the decision on the recovery of the working hours not worked during the application of this leave.
• The recovery of the hours may not involve the breach of the minimum daily and weekly rest periods, the establishment of a notice period shorter than that set forth in Article 34.2 of the Workers’ Statute, nor the exceeding of the maximum annual working day, and the rights of reconciliation of personal, work and family life must be respected.

The companies that must apply the recoverable paid leave may, if necessary, establish the minimum number of staff or work shifts strictly necessary in order to maintain the indispensable activity. This activity and this minimum number of staff or shifts will have as a reference the one maintained on an ordinary weekend or on public holidays.

In those cases in which it is impossible to immediately interrupt the activity, the workers included in the scope of the rule may render services on Monday, March 30, 2020 for the sole purpose of carrying out the essential tasks to make the recoverable paid leave effective without irremediably or disproportionately harming the resumption of the business activity.