• Employment advice to companies and individuals.
• Advice on Human Resources.
• Advice, assistance, defence and conflict claims.
• International labour advice.
• Labour audits.
• Prevention of occupational hazards.
• Collective bargaining.
• Calculation of EU pensions and bilateral agreements with foreign countries.
• Retirement, early retirement and partial retirement with relief contracts.
• Capitalisation of pensions and own pension plans provided for in the collective Agreement.
• Widowhood, orphanhood and assistance in the event of death.
• Applications for benefits accrued and not received.
• Arrangements for obtaining health care for displaced persons abroad.
• Compulsory Old Age and Disability Insurance (SOVI) pensions.
• Temporary incapacity benefit.
• Direct payment for maternity.
• Permanent incapacity.
• Unemployment benefit.
• Domestic service.
• Registrations in the Special Scheme for household Employees (permanent and intermittent).
• Registration and variations of the head of household.
• Contracts for sales representatives.
• Registration and deregistration of sales representatives.
• Preparation of monthly contribution bulletins.
• Special agreement with Social Security.
• Application and variations of special agreements with Social Security on contributions and health care.
• Preparation of salary slips and social security statements.
• Assistance with recruitment to adapt the different contractual arrangements to the interests of the company or the worker, taking into account the possibilities of existing subsidies, the duration of the contract and the specific clauses required for the type of contract to be entered into (preparation of the contract, extensions, etc.).
• Study, preparation and processing of applications for payment by instalments and deferral of payments of the General Social Security Scheme or self-employed fees of the General Treasury of Social Security.

About dismissal in Spain

In Spain, you can dismiss a worker for economic reasons (objective dismissal) or disciplinary reasons (disciplinary dismissal).

DISCIPLINAY DISMISSAL:

The company must justify the disciplinary dismissal with specific facts (days, dates, place, etc.), alleging that the worker has committed some offense punishable by dismissal, as provided for in the collective agreement. It is true that in this case, the company need not pay any type of compensation. However, the worker always has the possibility to challenge the dismissal (within a maximum period of 20 working days from the date of notification of the dismissal) and may claim the recognition of the dismissal as unfair, ordering the company to pay the worker compensation equivalent to 33 days of salary per year worked (with a 42/12 months cap)

The effective date of the dismissal should be the same as the date of notification of the dismissal.

OBJECTIVE DISMISSAL:

In this case, the company has to prove that there are economic, organisational, production or technical reasons to proceed with the amortization of labour. It is obligatory for the company to prove that it needs to proceed with the amortization. So, if the company intends to contract another person for the same job, they can't rely on objective dismissal.

• For economic reasons: We will have to study the accounting and tax situation in more detail, not only that of the company in Spain, but also of the company group. Therefore, we would need you to provide us with balance sheets, the summary of annual accounts, any accounting information that demonstrate that the group is losing money and has a negative turnover, etc. 
• For organisational reasons: We should examine the company's organisational needs and/or demonstrate that there are duplicated positions (meaning that if there is another person in the group who can take on this position, we must look in more detail at how this person could take on their functions).
• Production reasons: This occours whenever the market is changing and the company has to modify its workforce to adapt.
• Technical reasons: In cases in which there is a new technology or machine that can substitute the employee’s job.

HOW IT WORKS: OBJECTIVE DISMISSAL PROCEDURE IN SPAIN

Termination of employment:

The formal procedure to carry out a redundancy is to:

1. Provide the termination letter, explaining the grounds for the redundancy.
2. Provide 15 days’ notice. The company can make the decision to notify the dismissal with immediate effect, paying the 15 days' notice, or ask the worker to continue providing services during the 15 days' notice.
3. Provide a mandatory severance compensation equal to 20 days’ salary per year of service, with any period of less than one month of service to be computed as a full month, up to a maximum of 12 months’ salary.

Severance compensation

1. Justified redundancy: The mandatory severance for a justified redundancy equates to 20 days’ salary per year of service, with any period of less than one month of service to be computed as a full month, up to a maximum of 12 months’ salary.
2. Unjustified redundancy / unfair dismissal.

If the worker does not agree with the objective dismissal because he believes that the economic, organisational, production or technical reasons alleged are incorrect or false, he can claim the payment of compensation for unfair dismissal. This severance is calculated with the same parameters as above but at a ratio of 33 days’ salary per year of service, with any period of less than one month of service to be computed as a full month, up to a maximum of 24 months’ salary.

Calculate your indemnification here

The severance for dismissal is exempt from tax (until 180k) if the compensation is less than the maximum legal compensation corresponding to unfair dismissal.

Conciliation Hearing

If the employee decides to claim for recognition of the dismissal as unfair, the company will receive a summons to a prior conciliation in the CEMAC (i.e., service for mediation, conciliation, arbitration) of Barcelona. The objective is to reach an agreement in order to not have to go to the Court of Barcelona.

If the company privately settles with the employee, the agreement must be ratified in the CEMAC too. Conesa Legal will have to file a petition (“papeleta de conciliación”) for a conciliation hearing within the 20 days following the termination. Once we have filed that, both parties must be given a date to attend the conciliation. This is an administrative step in which the civil servants ask you whether you have settled and, if so, the administration issues a one-page document which states the amounts and method of payment. 

If the parties do not reach an agreement, the worker will have to present a lawsuit to the Court.

• Sport: recruitment of professionals in football, cycling, basketball and other sports. We have extensive experience in both national and international recruitment of athletes and coaches, especially with regard to the contractual aspects of the employment relationship of sportspeople in federations.
• Agricultural sector: we have extensive experience in this sector and are well versed in matters related to the applicable labour legislation.
• Sea workers: we provide specialised and qualified advice on all matters related to this area.
• Artists in public shows: we advise companies and artists and draw up contracts. We also draw up contracts related to image rights and authorship.
• Domestic employees: we advise on the employer's registration with Social Security. We draw up and process all types of contracts.

• Advice for Insolvency Administrators.
• Advice for employees facing insolvency proceedings.
• Corporate restructuring.

Collective bargaining makes it possible for employers and employees to define the rules that will govern their future employment relationship by means of an agreement. 

An in-depth knowledge of bargaining strategies is absolutely necessary in such cases in which the objective is to reach an agreement whose outcome will be positive for the company's future labour relations.

We believe in social dialogue and understand collective bargaining as an effective means of updating working conditions on a day-to-day basis. We offer our specialised advice, as well as our physical presence at the Negotiating Table, until a satisfactory agreement is reached for both parties, or until the corresponding administrative authorisation is obtained for company, sectoral or territorial collective agreements.

At Conesa Legal we have advised unions and business associations in collective bargaining, including trade unions, and we have acted as advisors in the negotiation of both sectoral and company collective bargaining agreements.

We participate in collective bargaining because we believe that agreement is an essential element of the regulation of working conditions and because we understand the effects of the content and wording of these agreements.

In addition, we are in a prime position to focus our strategy and defence in collective disputes because we understand the collective structure and we know how the rights and obligations contained in the different agreements affect the company as a whole.

At Conesa Legal we advise on labour matters because, in addition to having specialists in this field, we also have professionals who go to Court, and this allows us to gain firsthand experience of the ways in which the Courts resolve issues.

Given the changing world in which we find ourselves, and the constant legislative modifications to which we are subjected, our daily work in labour matters allows us to both become familiar with new legislation, and to intuitively predict the criteria that will be adopted by both the administration and the Courts when it comes to applying them.

Counting on our daily advice on labour matters is undoubtedly the best way to prevent potential labour issues further down the line.

It is essential to manage work-related accidents, even before they occur.

We apply our knowledge of Occupational Risk Prevention to both the necessary prevention of the accident and the defence in court.

An accident at work gives rise to the right of the worker to claim the corresponding incapacity provisions, in addition to the surcharge of benefits in labour matters. All of this is without prejudice to the damages derived from the physical and moral consequences caused by the accident.

Your defence may be before the Criminal Court, or the Social Court, so we have lawyers who are capable of defending the interests of the client before both jurisdictions, and we also count on the collaboration of doctors who evaluate the consequences and defend them as experts before the corresponding Court.

We also manage the administrative sanction procedures which, if applicable, may be brought by the labour administration.

Our constant contact with companies and senior managers has allowed us to become specialists in certain special relationships, especially that of senior managers themselves.

The senior management contract is fundamental in determining the way in which the relationship between the company and the manager is configured. And even how it may be dissolved.

We know how to reach a consensus between the company and the person interested in the position, and we draw up the contract with the knowledge of how this document is likely to be perceived. We therefore accompany the client in drawing up the employment contract because we consider it essential to the special employment relationship of the senior manager.

In the event of a conflict, we know how to negotiate and defend the positions and claims of both the senior manager and the company. Our experience allows us to employ legal arguments as well as ethical and material arguments.

The business world generally requires the company to employ sales personnel. 

We provide advice so that companies can set up a sales force. To do so, it is essential to have a clear idea of the relationship that the company wants to maintain with its sales representatives, i.e. the type of working hours it wants to demand; the type of remuneration it wants to offer; the areas it wants to assign; the support it wants to give to the sales representative to carry out his or her tasks; the control it wants to exercise over the sales representative; etc.

All of these elements will determine the suitability of a commercial relationship, such as in the case of a sales agent contract, or the effectiveness of employing a sales force made up of sales staff or sales representatives.

The incorporation of appropriate clauses in the employment contract will allow the contractual relationship to fluctuate in one way or another.

Furthermore, we are not only present when the contract is drawn up, but we can also be present when the clauses are explained to the employee to be hired, thus facilitating transparency when hiring.

We are also ready to act in case of conflict and defence of these clauses.

• Internal regulation protocols.
• Mobbing detection protocol.
• Equality Plan protocols.
• Sexual harassment detection protocol.
• Protocol for the coordination of third party companies in terms of occupational risk prevention.

Our intervention can be decisive as part of an acquisition transaction, in the valuation of a company, or simply in verifying the correctness of the decisions taken in labour matters.

Labour liabilities may not be visible at the time of the acquisition transaction, which may lead to future unforeseen lawsuits or very high future labour costs.

Our experience in labour disputes allows us today to accurately assess the consequences of a company takeover; the labour liabilities arising from subcontracting or illegal assignment of workers; the consequences of temporary contracts entered into in breach of the law; or the effects of missed social security contributions.

To this end, we carry out a Labour Checklist, issue a report, and quantify these labour liabilities so that the client has all the information necessary to assess the labour aspects of the company.

Our experience in European Union social law has been growing as more and more international elements appear in employment contracts.

The best prevention of potential issues is to know the exact law that will apply to the contract, whether it is a Senior Management contract or an ordinary employment relationship. These contracts may be agreed between parties from different countries, or the work may even be carried out in third countries.

Our added value lies in being able to defend the rights of the parties both in a national court and before the Court of Justice of the European Union, or before the European Court of Human Rights if it is a matter of defending fundamental rights.

We also advise International Organisations, in which both international private law and EU social law play a fundamental role in the configuration of the employment relationship, as well as in the decisions that may be taken by a future court, or the social benefits that may accrue.

That's why our team also includes specialists in social security, who advise on benefits accruing in different countries, as well as  specialists in expatriation and immigration.

Collective bargaining has become important for both large companies and SMEs. The possibility of adapting working conditions to the economic reality of the company is a way not only to gain competitiveness, but also to better adapt working conditions to the needs of the company itself.

We study the client's needs with them, we advise them and offer them possible options, we draw up the negotiation strategy, and we accompany them to the negotiating table until an agreement is reached.

We also study the company's situation for the possible preparation of a company agreement, we become acquainted with its reality in terms of worker representation, we draw up the proposals focusing the negotiation, and we initiate the necessary dialogue to reach a collective agreement that is satisfactory for both parties.

Moreover, we provide advice to unions and business associations regarding the preparation, negotiation, drafting and subsequent processing of the sectoral collective agreement by the corresponding administrative bodies for its publication, both at provincial, regional and national level.

Our knowledge of the reality of labour matters in companies has allowed us to defend both companies and workers in company restructuring processes. We believe that labour law is a two-sided coin: that of the company and that of the workers. Understanding the rights and obligations of both parties is fundamental for collective bargaining, and for the defence of the rights of either party in court.

Collective dismissal, temporary suspension of working conditions, collective bargaining, collective modification of working conditions, the establishment of a new framework through a collective company agreement, the double salary scale, the filing of an insolvency proceeding when faced with the impossibility of meeting the payments necessary to continue with the business activity, claims before the Fogasa, etc. All of this has become a speciality of this firm, which we manage through a versatile team of professionals with experience of and precise knowledge in labour matters, collective bargaining, economics and accounting, and insolvency proceedings.

The economists assess the situation from an objective point of view, offering alternative viability plans if possible. Once the problem has been diagnosed, different labour measures may be necessary to try to correct the problems that have been identified.

Should the company be faced with a suspension of payments or a debt waiver to solve the problem, we have insolvency administrators ready to advise on insolvency matters, so we can manage any insolvency situations that may arise.

We have discreetly and successfully handled a multitude of cases, defending the interests of the company in some cases, and the interests of the workers in others.