The Superior Court of Justice of Galicia in its ruling of May 20, 2022 clarifies the difference between a job offer and a pre-employment contract.

When is there a precontract?

When both parties acquire the will to formalize an employment relationship in the near future.

The pre-contract must reflect the working conditions, working hours, salary, type of contract, the collective agreement that will apply to the employment relationship, the work center where the service will be provided and the date of incorporation of the worker into the company. The signing of a pre-contract is binding.

What are the particularities of a job offer?

The main characteristic is that it is a unilateral will of one of the parties and cannot be classified as a contract, for this reason it cannot be binding.

In this dispute, the company was looking for a cook and contacted the worker to offer this job. The company and the worker signed a pre-contract, for this reason the worker decided to request a leave of absence from his job at the Ministry of Defense.

The company sent an email to the worker informing him of its intention to enter into an employment contract and in this email informed him of the working conditions, including the date of incorporation.

In the end, the contract was not concluded and the company claimed that the kitchen had not been able to open and as a consequence it hired a catering service.

In the litigation it was not possible to conclude whether the reason alleged for non-compliance with the pre-contract actually exonerated the company from compliance with the pre-contract, but the reality is that we found a detriment to the worker since he had already taken his leave of absence and the expectations reflected in the pre-contract were not met, leaving the worker unprotected for this reason that was unforeseeable for him.

He failed The ruling concludes that the company must pay the worker as compensation the wages lost and the corresponding settlement.