We won’t always be lucky enough to work from home. And much less, that work catches us in a few minutes. For this reason, it is increasingly difficult to reach reconcile personal and work life. For this reason, we are going to know what the TSJM has ruled and what it can mean for the future.
The time spent going to work
In this case, in particular, the judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid makes clear the right of workers to be able to reconcile their personal life with work. And it is that, in a judgment of January 27, the appeal filed by a worker against a ruling of the Madrid social court, in July 2022, was partially upheld.
The case goes back to an employee, hired in 2010, full time. However, in 2012, this person had to request a change to part-time in order to have time to take care of her daughter. Already in 2021, it was established that the worker could provide her services to two different centers through two routes: a teleworking part and another in person. Although, the main problem came when one of these centers was 27 kilometers from his home.
As a result of this, this person had to request, in the original claim, that the right to reconcile his working life with the person be declared, since the distance involved a large part of his daily time. Therefore she requested it’given her parental status‘, as stated in the sentence. To do this, they requested the change of one of the centers or, as an alternative, that they adapt your working daywhich was already reduced, with the aim of compensating for the greater distance it had from one of the centers to which it was assigned.
Basically, because the travel time to your new center went from 35 minutes to 80 minutes per trip. And if that request was not taken into account, he asked for a private transport bonus of a minimum of 155 euros per month. In addition to ‘compensation in the amount of 6,250 euros, for moral damages, as well as the existence of damages for having to use a private vehicle to go to work, in the amount of 213 euros, also per month‘. However, the labor court, on July 11, 2022, dismissed that request.
The sentence of the TSJM
On the other hand, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid partially upholds the appeal filed by this worker against the sentence of the Jugado de lo Social number 36 of Madrid. In fact, they claim that travel time even work has to be taken into account: ‘We declare that, for the computation of the plaintiff’s current daily schedule, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the 45′ difference must be taken into account, resulting from the journey from her daughter’s school to the workplace‘.
However, it completely rejects the demands of the worker regarding the compensation that she requested in the first lawsuit. Although, the TSJM has established that the company must compensate the worker with 1,000 euros for moral damages. Therefore, looking to the future, we must bear in mind that the time spent traveling to our workplace can be counted within the working day.