On 21 November, in response to a request by the Spanish courts, the CJEU ruled again on the September 2016 Diego Porras case (c.f. article No. 9818) that had resulted in a highly controversial decision, which had put employment termination compensation for those on fixed term employment contracts on an equal footing as for those employed on permanent employment contracts, and this time round it confirmed and put its signature to the legal reversal of that 2016 decision which had initially been secured in June 2018 (c.f. article No. 10707). The argument underlying unequal treatment remains unchanged namely workers on fixed term employment contracts are aware that their employment will come to a close under the conditions laid out in the employment contract, while workers on permanent employment contracts cannot foresee that the employment relationship will end. Even if both workers (the permanent and temporary) carry out similar job roles they undergo dissimilar employment termination compensation treatment. However, in spite of this third EU court case that considers the Spanish ‘contrato de interinidad’*, treatment for this third type of employment remains uncertain.
National legislation can intend for compensation to vary between the two forms of employment contract relationship (permanent and temporary) without violating EU Directive 1999/70 that imposes equal treatment between the two contract forms.
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