The High Court rejects the right of workers who provided night shift services and signed an agreement on teleworking, to receive the transportation bonus established in the collective agreement.

In its ruling, it resolves the appeal against the ruling of September 13, 2021 handed down by the Social Chamber of the National Court, which it confirms. This ruling dismissed the lawsuit in which the right of workers who provided services on the night shift and signed an agreement on teleworking, to receive the transportation bonus established in the collective agreement, was claimed. They received this bonus during the nine months following starting teleworking.

For the company, the transportation bonus is an extra-salary and finalist payment, aimed at facilitating the employee's transportation from their home to the work center, so it understands that it is not appropriate to pay this bonus to personnel who carry out their work without requiring travel to the work center. The company decided to maintain it during those nine months without this implying the birth of a right as a more beneficial condition on the part of the workers. 

For the Supreme Court, there is no such thing as the most beneficial condition referred to in article 3.1 c) of the Workers' Statute, because the birth of a right as a most beneficial condition requires proof on the part of the workers that demonstrates the company's intention to grant them the right they demand and that improves the working conditions that are legally or conventionally established, that is, the company's willingness to incorporate it into the contractual nexus, and not mere liberality or tolerance. Therefore, repetition or persistence over time of enjoyment is not enough, and proof of the existence of the company's will to attribute the right to workers is necessary.

And the terms of the teleworking agreement do not allow it to be proven that the company wanted to maintain the transportation bonus. On the contrary, its decision to modify the remuneration concepts in the salary slips after nine months indicates the opposite.