(CN) — Spain’s attempt to patch over its temporary worker problem unraveled Tuesday, as Europe’s top court made clear that countries can’t fix job insecurity with a system that keeps people stuck in it.
A child care worker in Madrid spent years cycling through temporary contracts and went to court seeking recognition as a permanent employee. Spain’s Supreme Court, unsure whether its system lines up with EU labor rules, asked whether stopgap fixes like capped compensation or a status that is technically open-ended but still not truly permanent are enough.
The Court of Justice of the European Union said no.
EU labor law allows temporary contracts, but not when they are rolled over again and again to fill what are, in reality, permanent jobs. If that happens, countries must step in with remedies that actually deter abuse, not ones that simply soften the impact.
“A measure offering effective and equivalent safeguards for the protection of workers must be capable of being applied in order duly to penalize that misuse and to nullify the consequences of the breach of EU law,” the court said.
Spain’s system, the judges found, falls short.
Spanish courts have tried to address abusive hiring by shifting workers into a hybrid category, an “indefinite” contract that is still not permanent. On paper, it offers stability. In practice, a job can still end once the position is filled through a formal competitive process.
“The conversion of successive fixed-term contracts into a ‘...
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