Discrimination Under Employment Law: Protected Classes Under Employment Law

Protected classes

Under the Spanish constitution, employees have the right from being discriminated against from either intentional or unintentional actions (similar to disparate impact and disparate treatment). A result of any action seen to be intentional or unintentional discrimination by law can lead to punitive damages and fines of between 6,251 EUR and 187,515 EUR. Protected classes under employment law are: sex, civil status, age, race or ethnic origin, religion or conviction, political ideas, sexual orientation, membership or non-membership (union), and languages. Employees have the right to terminate their employment contract for any allegation of discrimination or harassment against the employer and receive severance pay and compensation

Individual dismissals or also known as disciplinary dismissals are the circumstance at which the employer unilaterally decides to terminate an employee under serious breach of contract. Ranging from: lack of attendance, or late arrival, disobedience, verbal or physical offence to other employees or employer, transgression or decrease of performance in work and frequent use of substances while working. Employee may file an appeal against the decision where a labor judge may agree or disagree with the employer’s cause of termination.

Under collective dismissals, termination of the employee justified by labor authority results in a minimum indemnity payment of 20 days of pay per year of service, with a maximum of 12 months of payments. Under both circumstances of dismissal, an unjustified termination of the employee will result with disciplinary dismissal indemnity of 33 days of pay per year of service, with a maximum of 24 months of payments (ILO, art 56 ET).

Employment

With primary two different contracts, permanent contract and temporary contracts, both types must comply with the minimum legal requirements under the Statue of Workers for workers’ rights. Temporary contracts within Spain are a unique, ranging from training and learning contracts to contracts for production and replacement needs, they also are entitled to the same rights and benefits as permanent employees. At the date of termination, temporary workers are entitled to severance pay the amounts to 12 days of salary per year of work for the contract. (Lamoncloa, section 15.6).

However, if the temporary worker exceeds 24 months of total work, not limited to a single position, either directly or through a temporary employment agency, then they shall become a permanent employee (ILO, 4 Royal Decree Law 3/2012). Permanent contracts are not only full time employees but as well as part-time employees, which are essentially considered the same other than the total hours worked within a workweek. Permanent contracts are unique in a way of payments; usually these contracts contain 14 or 15 monthly payments. The extra monthly payments are often paid at Christmas, Easter, and in the