The Supreme Court has ruled that the company cannot impact on the teleworker the times of interruption of the electrical network or disconnection from the internet for reasons beyond their control. Nor can the time necessary to go to the toilet and attend to one's physiological needs be counted as rest time, so recovery of working hours or reduction of salary for such situations is not applicable.
This is stated in a ruling from the Social Chamber of the high court, which resolves a collective conflict claim that was raised by the union organizations, in interpretation of the provisions of the Contac Center Collective Agreement, and that was already resolved by the National Court in a ruling that has now been confirmed.
The magistrates point out that "there is no doubt that the treatment of the working conditions of personnel who provide services through teleworking cannot be worse than those of in-person work."
Therefore, if power or network outages that may occur in workplaces do not mean that their in-person workers must recover the working time affected by said incidents or their salary is not reduced, "this cannot affect either to those who provide services through teleworking".
Regarding physiological needs, the Supreme Court remembers that these must be covered as they are "basic and essential" for the human being. Thus, the ruling warns the company that not even through an agreement can the time and moment to go to the toilet be set because it is the worker himself who, at certain times, finds himself in the need to go to the bathroom "and this "should not be treated under the regime that the company intends."
According to the resolution, although the worker can use his rest time to attend to these needs, "the truth is that they can occur at any other time during the service itself without us being able to consider that the essential time to attend to it can be identified." as time of those precepts of the agreement that respond to other situations.
