{"id":20549,"date":"2016-10-14T10:22:54","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T17:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=20549"},"modified":"2016-10-14T10:36:12","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T17:36:12","slug":"in-spain-three-women-win-a-battle-for-workers-dignity-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=20549","title":{"rendered":"In Spain, three women win a battle for workers\u2019 dignity everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Workers

Workers in the October 12 Hospital in Madrid<\/p><\/div>\n

Florentina Mart\u00ednez Andr\u00e9s<\/a>, Mar\u00eda Elena P\u00e9rez L\u00f3pez<\/a>, and Ana de Diego Porras<\/a> did not know each other, but are linked in a struggle for workers\u2019 dignity<\/a>. All three worked for years on temporary replacement contracts. After years of working for the same employer, each woman was dismissed and informed that, under the law, she was not entitled to any compensation at all, because she was \u201ctemporary.\u201d Florentina Mart\u00ednez Andr\u00e9s had worked full time for the same employer for two years. Mar\u00eda Elena P\u00e9rez L\u00f3pez had worked full time for the same employer for four years. Ana de Diego Porras had worked full-time for the same employer for nine years. But each was temporary and so \u2026 And so, each woman took their employers and the State to court, and last month, they all won, and so did Spanish workers generally.<\/p>\n

Spanish labor law creates a formal three-tier structure<\/a>: permanent workers, fixed term workers, and temporary workers. At termination of contract, permanent workers receive 20 days\u2019 salary per year of service; fixed term workers receive 12 days salary; and temporary workers receive nothing. Ana de Diego Porras worked as an administrative secretary for Spain\u2019s Ministry of Defense; Florentina Mart\u00ednez Andr\u00e9s worked as an administrative secretary for Osakidetza, the public health service of the Basque Country; Mar\u00eda Elena P\u00e9rez L\u00f3pez worked as a nurse for SERMAS, Madrid\u2019s public health service. All three argued that workers received compensation upon termination of contract because they earned it through their labor, and that the hierarchical categories constituted a shell game used to divide workers and thereby to steal from some. In late September, the European Court of Justice, in three separate and linked opinions, agreed with the women workers.<\/p>\n

Close to 4,000,000 workers in Spain are formally \u201ctemporary\u201d workers<\/a>, and so these decisions will have immediately significant impact. Additionally, the decisions suggest that the different between \u201cfull time\u201d and \u201cfixed term\u201d will also have to be reconsidered. For example, 40% of doctors in public health institutions currently don\u2019t have permanent positions<\/a>. The lawyers representing Mar\u00eda Elena P\u00e9rez L\u00f3pez already have over 400 cases ready to go.<\/p>\n

Taken together, the three judgments deliver a direct and frontal assault on public and private employer abuses and a labor system in which some workers are protected and others are abandoned<\/a>. Further, the judgments undermine the common sense of precarious labor, which says that workers must be satisfied with living contingently, with zero security and zero dignity. Florentina Mart\u00ednez Andr\u00e9s, Mar\u00eda Elena P\u00e9rez L\u00f3pez, and Ana de Diego Porras said \u201cNo to the Zero!\u201d \u2026 and they won! Actually, we all won.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Photo Credit: Peri\u00f3dico Diagonal<\/a> \/ David Fern\u00e1ndez)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florentina Mart\u00ednez Andr\u00e9s, Mar\u00eda Elena P\u00e9rez L\u00f3pez, and Ana de Diego Porras did not know each other, but are linked in a struggle for workers\u2019 dignity. All three worked for years on temporary replacement contracts. After years of working for the same employer, each woman was dismissed and informed that, under the law, she was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5723,114,5721,556,5722,5240,5724,5085],"class_list":["post-20549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-ana-de-diego-porras","tag-dan-moshenberg","tag-florentina-martinez-andres","tag-haunts","tag-maria-elena-perez-lopez","tag-spain","tag-temporary-workers","tag-women","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20549"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20552,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20549\/revisions\/20552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}