Justice fines the Vox union with 1,000 euros for a complaint "reckless" against class unions

On May 21, 2021, International Workers’ Day, Santiago Abascal presented the new union linked to Vox. It was called ‘Solidarity’ and its objective, as he stated from a lectern in Madrid’s Conde de Casal square, was to combat the “corrupt and class” unions. In recent weeks, the National Court has fined this Vox union on the understanding that it acted “recklessly” in a complaint against the SEAT class unions: the judges accuse them of seeking “interference in internal union activity” and of incurring in “an arbitrary and unsubstantiated exercise of the right to judicial protection that must be sanctioned.”

The union linked to the extreme right was established within SEAT in February 2022 with a delegate at the helm. By then the unions had been negotiating a new collective agreement for several months, reaching a preliminary agreement in June of that year. A pre-agreement that the two majority class unions in the company, CCOO and UGT, decided to submit to a vote of their affiliates. The binding consultation, carried out in July of that same year, was favorably received by more than 70% of the affiliates.

That day a person came to the tables but could not vote because he was not affiliated with either the Comisiones Obreras or the General Union of Workers. He was the representative of the Solidaridad union, who understood that not being able to vote in an internal consultation of another union harmed not only his rights but also that of all non-unionized SEAT workers, and he took the case before the National Court. He not only denounced the CCOO and the UGT, but also the General Labor Confederation (CGT), the SEAT-USO Workers Union and the company itself. And he asked for compensation of 15,000 euros.

The first doubts about the claim arose as soon as the process began. The social chamber of the National Court asked the union linked to Vox to prove its level of implementation in the territory, the sector or the company, or at least the percentage of workers it represented, a necessary requirement to raise this type of of judicial processes. Solidaridad’s response was that it represented “all the workers of the company who, while not affiliated with either the CCOO or the UGT, could not vote in the referendum called by both trade unions on the pre-agreement of the collective agreement, and who constitute a generic group and indeterminate”.

This is the reason that has led the National Court to reject the claim outright without even examining the merits of the matter. At most, the judges say, the Vox union has proven that it has two affiliates at Seat: the delegate and the secretary. “He has not carried out even the slightest probative activity that would have allowed him to prove the number of affiliates or the percentage of affiliation that he has in the sphere of the SEAT SA company, which should not have been very difficult for him, without having to provide a nominal relationship, a quantitative exposure being sufficient”, reproach the judges.

Two affiliates, the sentence continues, constitutes a number that in a company like SEAT “cannot constitute a relevant percentage that would allow us to appreciate the implementation” of the union. Nor did he participate in the negotiation of the agreement together with the inter-centre committee, recall the judges, where there are no members of Solidarity and which started months before the arrival of the union at the company.

Fine of 1,000 euros for recklessness

The defendant class unions and the company itself requested that Solidaridad be fined for recklessness for having requested 15,000 euros for not being able to participate in an internal consultation of a foreign union. And the judges agree to impose an appealable fine of 1,000 euros, understanding, first of all, that it was not very difficult to understand that they did not let him vote: “It is clearly logical that only affiliates can vote in an internal consultation of two unions,” they explain.

The doctrine that requires some type of implantation of a union to initiate this type of lawsuits, says the National Court, has been well known for 30 years and that Solidarity should “be aware” of it. Even the labor court is surprised that, when a justification was requested regarding the collective interest that they claimed to defend with this lawsuit, they provided rulings that “by the way, refer not to legitimacy but to the existence of a collective conflict.”

There is also recklessness, says the National Court, because it was an unfounded claim, filed even against unions that had nothing to do with the CCOO and UGT consultation. “The claim is so unfounded that, in a hypothetical approach, if this Chamber admitted that the freedom of association of a non-member who is not allowed to vote in a consultation for members is being infringed, we would surely be incurring in interference in union activity internal union of the convening unions, which would harm their fundamental right ”, reproaches the sentence to the union directly linked to Vox.

Solidarity’s claim, settled by the National Court, was an “arbitrary and unsubstantiated exercise of the right to judicial protection” that deserves a penalty of 1,000 euros. A sanction that is imposed taking into account, the judges explain, not only all these arguments but also that it came to involve four unions and the company itself.