The Supreme Court approves smaller severance pay for those over 60 years old

He Supreme Court does not consider it discriminatory that the company agrees with its workers within the framework of negotiations on the employment file (YOU ARE), agrees to lower severance pay for employees over the age of 60, a disparity in treatment that he considers “reasonable and proportionate,” arguing that workers of that age are closer to retirement. In a ruling dated January 24, the Social Chamber dismissed the appeal against the judgment of the Supreme Court of Justice of Castilla-La Mancha, which agreed with Elcogás, Endesa Generación, Enel Spa, Hidroeléctrica del Cantábrico, Électricité of France Internacional and Iberdrola Generación, regarding the dismissal. The High Court of Castilian-Manchego held that different treatment of employees based on their age was “objectively justified in the unequal situation in which some workers were left after the termination of the employment contract”, an argument now supported by the Supreme Court.

In their verdict, the judges of the high court emphasize that the agreement for ERE for all those affected, regardless of age, established a severance pay higher than the applicable one, which in this case was 20 days per year of service, because the collective dismissal was justified by objective economic reasons.

Therefore, all workers were compensated as if from a Unfair dismissal in question, although those under the age of 60 are granted an additional benefit of 14,500 euros if their salary is less than 50,000 euros gross per year; 10,500 euros if it is greater than that figure, and less than 100,000 euros, or 6,500 euros if it does not exceed 150,000 euros.

Only workers with salaries exceeding 150,000 euros remained without this allowance, while the amounts are lower for those over 60 years old.

A worker of the Ecolgás factory in Puertollano (Ciudad Real) complained about the ERE agreement. The woman, who was 60 years old at the time of her dismissal in March 2016, was offered a compensation of 83,505.43 euros at the rate of 26 days’ salary per year of service, of which 66,804.34 euros corresponded to the legal compensation of 20 days per year and 16,701 EUR .09 for the offered compensation improvement.

The Supreme Court, however, rejects the appeal, finding that there was an “objective, reasonable and proportionate justification” for the difference in the treatment of workers aged 60 or over, since they are “very close to accessing the pension, which stands at the gates of it s by the perception of unemployment benefits”. In addition, it understands that these workers could “more easily” benefit from the possibility of concluding a special agreement with the social security system to continue paying contributions. Likewise, the High Court points out that the agreement reached between the company and the union is the result of a collective negotiation and individual autonomy within a private company, “without any taint of illegality from that purely formal perspective”.

For the Most High, It is “reasonable and proportionate” to consider a lower compensation for those who have already reached the age of 60 due to their proximity to retirement. On the other hand, it is understood that “younger workers have a more uncertain professional and life path, they are still far from retirement, and the social insurance they could receive in the future is objectively more difficult to reach”. until the moment of entering that pension”.

“The sacrifice required of those in one or another age group is reasonable and proportionate, and it is objectively justified that the agreement on the distribution of the costs of the total amount of compensation reached with the company favors to a greater extent the group that is furthest from the moment of retirement”, continues the sentence that unifies the doctrine.