Superior Court of Justice of Galicia. (Image: TSXG)
The Superior Court of Xustiza of Galicia (TSXG) has supported the decision of the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) of not counted as effective contribution timefor the purposes of a new unemployment benefit, the periods in which workers were on ERTE due to COVID-19.
Following the criteria of the Supreme Court, the Social Division of the TSXG has determined that this time cannot be considered to extend the duration of unemployment benefits, since, according to a Supreme Court ruling, the special regulations established during the pandemic do not contemplate this right, applying the general rule that excludes this possibility.
In its resolution, the TSXG refers to article 24.2 of Royal Decree-Law 8/2020, which states that the exemption from company contributions does not affect the worker, maintaining the period as “effectively quoted for all purposes«. However, the Court clarifies that this does not imply that said period is considered as unemployment contributions during the time in which benefits are received for suspension of the employment contract due to force majeure caused by COVID-19.
The Court recalls that the purpose of this article is to consider as contributions the periods in which the company does not make the corresponding contributions, being exempt from this obligation.
With this decision, the TSXG has accepted the appeal filed by the SEPE against a ruling by the Social Court number 2 of Vigo, rejecting the claim of a worker and absolving the SEPE of the accusations against her. The ruling makes it clear that it is not discussed whether the period that the worker was in ERTE-COVID-19 should be considered as consumed for a future unemployment benefit after her dismissal.
In fact, according to the proven facts, when the worker received unemployment benefits after her dismissal, they were not considered days consumed. What was debated in this case was whether that period should be counted as contributions to obtain future unemployment benefits after her dismissal from a sports company on December 30, 2022. The ruling is not final, since an appeal can be filed.
