In a recent judgment handed down on January 18, 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the appeal for unification of doctrine presented by a financial entity, by which it acquitted it of paying early-retired workers the value of the contributions to the pension plans that had been suspended at the time of jubilation.
This long process, which began in 2013, affected one of the most important financial entities at the moment in Spain, the result of the merger of several regional savings banks through the Institutional Protection System (SIP).
The admission of an appeal like this is usually complicated, according to the Labor Law team of the JL CASAJUANA Law Firm that leads the defense of the financial institution, due to the very demanding requirements for the identity of cases among the sentences that are appealed. and those that are provided as contradictory to those.
In this case, after disparate rulings in different social courts and predominantly the dismissal of the defendants, the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla-La Mancha, in which most of the matters had fallen as one of the banking entities involved A greater location in said Autonomous Community, estimates the appeals of early retirees and dismisses those filed by the bank in cases where the claims of this group have been upheld in the instance.
Origin and evolution of the facts
After an ERE ended in January 2.011, a large number of workers agreed to early retirement, among whose conditions is the maintenance of contributions until the date of effective retirement or, at the latest, until the age of 64.
The application of the conditions proceeds normally until, in December 2.013, and with effect from January 1, 2.014, a collective agreement is reached by which, among other measures, the contributions to the pension plans the beginning of the validity of said agreement until June 30, 2017.
Said measure applies to both active workers and early retirees who, at that time, have the employment relationship terminated as a result of an agreed early retirement and with the commitment to maintain the contributions until the time of effective retirement or fulfillment of 64 years.
The early retirees are opposed, on the one hand, to the application of the aforementioned measure as they are not registered workers in the company and, on the other, to affecting the agreement by which they decide to take advantage of early retirement, of which they had only three years elapsed, since they claimed that they had guaranteed the maintenance of contributions until the agreed date.
The Pension Plan Control Commission did not introduce what was agreed upon in collective bargaining in the corresponding specifications.
In this case, the early retirees belonging to one of the entities that merged, with a wide location in Castilla-La Mancha, also presented a collation of an old agreement by which their contributions to the Pension Plans would remain guaranteed until compliance with the 65 years, which were calculated up to that moment, for which the so-called additional contributions, exclusive to this entity, were created.
And to conclude, which meant another added difficulty, the December 2.013 agreement provided for the recovery of contributions at the time of jubilation, which the early retirees understood should have been applied to them and for this reason they tried to keep them at decide to retire, which, ultimately, was the nuclear issue.
Finally, the full Supreme Court has upheld the appeal for unification of doctrine filed by the banking entity, which decides to annul the sentence and, consequently, the entity is not obliged to carry out the contribution for the amount of value of those suspended at the moment of jubilation.
What conclusions can we draw from the sentence?
The doctrine of the Supreme Court is reiterated according to which the recognition of benefits related to pension plans does not constitute an immutable right, but is subject to the possibility of its modification, in particular through collective bargaining or modification procedures. substantial change in working conditions, and for this reason the mere expectation of receiving contributions must always be subject to the specific regulation that exists at each moment in time.
There have been many courts that have ruled that the measure of suspension of contributions to pension plans is applicable to workers with an terminated employment relationship, which has led to the controversy being derived from the right to recovery of contributions when the workers agreed to effective jubilation.
In this regard, the art. 6 of RD 1588/1999, of October 15, which approves the Regulation on the implementation of company pension commitments with workers and beneficiaries, establishes that the implementation of pension commitments will affect the commitments assumed by the company with their personal assets, and adds that any natural person who voluntarily provides their paid services by virtue of an employment relationship will be considered a personal asset, including within that concept of personal assets for the purposes of this regulation, workers with those that the company maintains pension commitments, even when the employment relationship with them has been terminated, a criterion that was swallowed by the jurisprudence in the matter, for the entire sentence of December 20, 1.996 of the Supreme Court, which guarantees the validity of the modification of measures corresponding to pension plans for workers whose employment contract has been terminated, and the legitimacy d Accompaniment of the representatives of the workers to intervene in the negotiation in number, not only of the workers with vigilante contract, but also in that of those who are not active due to having gone through a situation of jubilation or early retirement.
And that is why by way of art. 41 And it is possible to modify the rights of workers who had previously terminated the employment relationship, and even more so when the conditions subject to modification come from the prior existence of that employment contract and are longer in force beyond its validity.
The conflict originates when the collective agreement of December 27, 2.013 modifies, by suspending contributions to pension plans, the previous one of January 3, 2.011, in which it was agreed that workers who took early retirement would maintain that right until they retire and, at most, until they reach 64 years of age.
We certainly find ourselves before a matter of succession of agreements, which is governed by articles 82.4 and 86.4 of the Workers' Statute, according to the first of which "the collective agreement that succeeds a previous one can provide for the rights recognized in those . In this case, what is regulated in the new Agreement will be fully applied”. For its part, the second article establishes that "the agreement that succeeds a previous one repeals the latter in its apparatus, except for those aspects that are expressly maintained." Thus, in the case of Collective Agreements, the general principle of succession of legal norms, according to which the later norm repeals the previous one. Thus, jurisprudence has declared that the subsequent agreement repeals the previous one in its entirety, so that the principle of irregressivity in the succession of collective agreements does not apply (sentences of the Supreme Court of 16/12/1994, 22/6/2005, between others), without, on the other hand, being able to attempt that the repealed clauses of the collective agreements generate more beneficial conditions (for all Judgment of 11/5/1992 -rec. 1918/1991-). In this way, the maintenance of certain aspects of the previous Agreement must be carried out expressly by the new one, which does not happen in our case.
In the judgment of the Supreme Court that we are commenting on, full extinction power is attributed to the pre-retirement situation, which is decisive when it comes to fighting the right to recover the contributions that were suspended, since it should not confuse the maintenance of the work relation to the maintenance of the situation of activity in the pension plan, perfectly different situations that, as we have said, decisively influenced the resolution adopted by the Chamber, we interpret that the leave in the company is not due to joy, which would give right to recovery of contributions, and this because the agreement of December 27, 2013 states in the clause included in point 6 of letter C: "... for those who have caused suspension of ordinary contributions and additional contributions, or before the end of the aforementioned period of extraordinary contributions, due to retirement, collective dismissal (art. 51 of the ET) and for objective reasons (ar t. 52 of the ET) will be made an extraordinary contribution equivalent to the contributions that would have been made up to the date of said event without the suspension of contributions provided for in this agreement..."
And the Chamber maintains that the extinction occurred well in advance of the suspension of contributions and, of course, it did not occur out of joy, since when he retired he already had the employment relationship extinguished from the moment he took early retirement.
And in this, the traditional jurisprudential doctrine on the matter establishes that "the suspension carries with it the expectation of restarting the labor service, while early retirement supposes the definitive rupture of the contract although the company is linked to the worker through a series of commitments that arise as a consequence of the agreement in which the conditions of early retirement are established and, therefore, suppose a definitive contractual expiration that can be included in art. future that must govern between the parties, specifically in order to pay the compensation for deferred payment and the maintenance of the rights of the worker both in the field of Social Security, and in the pension plans of the employer.»
