The collective agreement of the security guards' guild states that when a new company takes over a security contract, it must subrogate all workers who were assigned to the service if they have been in it for more than 7 months.
Since August 2004, Blanca has been working as a security guard guarding the installations of a power plant in Cartagena (Murcia). She worked for several companies in the same place, being the last Security Ombuds.
But this company informed her that it would cease its activity with them coinciding with the end of 2019. The reason was none other than the transfer of the contract for the surveillance of the installations of the Murcian thermal power station to another company: Compañía de Vigilancia Aragonesa.
But the administrators kept the contracts of two of their colleagues when the plant was always controlled by three guards over the years. This led Blanca to file a lawsuit against the new contractor under the security guards' agreement.
The case reached the juzgado de lo social número 1 in Cartagena. In this sense, the judges pointed out that the case law on the matter states that "even in cases where the volume of the contract has been reduced, when what is transferred is an economic entity that maintains its identity (...), the new contractor is obliged to subrogate all the personnel of the previous contract, without prejudice to the fact that, subsequently, it may face the need to reduce proportionally the number of workers or their working hours, by means of objective dismissals or other organisational measures", clarifies the ruling.
Therefore, the Murcia judges, in a judgment which can be appealed, declared Blanca's dismissal to be unfair, obliging her to be reinstated in her previous post or to be paid EUR 31450 by way of compensation for dismissal. Read more
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