It is changing by definition, which puts continuous pressure on the norms in charge of delimiting the relationship of power between employers and workers. Francisco Trujillo Pons (Castellón, 40 years old) is a professor of Labor and Social Security Law at the Universitat Jaume I. Since 2017, he has been explaining various judicial rulings on labor matters in a concise and understandable way, and this year he has been recognized as one of the most influential figures on the platform. “In seven years I have managed to get more than 34,000 people to follow me, it’s crazy,” he acknowledges via video call from his university office.
In his publications, Trujillo breaks down rulings on teleworking, conciliation or work-related illnesses in a maximum of 3,000 characters. And it accompanies its texts, which facilitate the understanding of each case. “Since I have used them, the growth in visits has been exponential. In 2024 there will be more than six million views,” he explains. This year he published a book with all these texts—“also with unpublished material,” he details—and in 2025 he will launch another one focused on workplace harassment.
Your task on LinkedIn is not easy, since translating judicial language—as a rule, quite extensive and full of attributions to articles from different laws or previous rulings—into a spectrum understandable by anyone outside of this environment requires time and effort. “The people who read my texts the most are analysts, human resources technicians, judges, magistrates or inspectors. However, it is also done by workers from any sector who are interested in any of the issues because it affects them,” he indicates.
In fact, although legal doctrine may seem like content intended for a very specific niche of professionals, by focusing on different facets of employment it unleashes the interest of the general public. “I started this with the idea of creating an informative window that could serve my students. But I also did it because I believe that, as a public servant that I am, there is a need to make citizens aware of basic knowledge of labor law.”
However, it also recognizes that there are cases in which knowledge of the details of the standard can be used by workers who try to take advantage of the loopholes that exist for their benefit. “I don’t know if the current generation is more listillaor has thinner skin. But the fact is that, reviewing the judicial doctrine, the cases that have grown the most are those that have to do with harassment. And, to a greater extent, there are more resolutions in which its existence is denied. Which should make us reflect,” Trujillo warns.
Interventionism
The boom in labor information has been unfolding over the last few years, thanks to a sequence of regulatory changes that have altered some of the most stagnant paradigms. “He has done more for workers than conservative governments did in the previous decade. It is true that there has been a tidal wave of regulations that has mixed everything up, but that interventionism, although it had a good nature, has been necessary to repair the setback that had occurred in basic labor rights,” he points out.
Although its content is varied and broad, he admits that he is not dedicated to it all day long. Leave posts scheduled in advance. “I think now I have everything ready until March. There are usually no more than two messages a day,” he explains.
This programmed omnipresence serves to defend the right to digital disconnection of workers at a time like the current one, in which hyperconnectivity has spread through different activities. “There is still a lot of awareness to be done in this regard, especially because it is poorly regulated,” he analyzes, “since it is recognized as a right, it is the worker who must decide how to exercise it. If it had been defined as an obligation for companies, surely many of the current abuses would not occur.”
In addition to being a user, Trujillo is a defender of artificial intelligence tools, and defends that their impact on the labor market does not have to be negative: “It is a perfect complement. AI is immersed in the day-to-day life of all jobs, and I believe that at the level of labor law, as long as data protection is taken into legal territory, it is perfectly valid. “It has more benefits than disadvantages.”
This is why, in his opinion as a jurist, the current dangers that workers face are once again the usual ones. “That they are not paid as they should, the existence of false self-employed workers, unpaid overtime, temporary contracts that violate the law…,” he lists. It does add, as a novelty, those setbacks that arise from psychosocial risks. “I think it is the current workhorse that we must pay attention to,” he warns. It refers to the rise in sick leave due to mental illnesses that require a prevention plan that many companies have not yet implemented.
Despite the various regulatory changes—approval of the labor reform, various increases in the minimum wage, recognition of the right to unemployment benefits for domestic workers, among others—Trujillo considers that Spanish labor law still requires updating. “Spain must be a modern country, and for this it is necessary to change the Workers’ Statute, because society is asking us to do so,” he emphasizes. The expert is part, along with other professors, of the , whose work includes the analysis of the sections on which this reform should focus, and which advocates assimilating it to the regulations of the Nordic countries and the community directives.
For this reason, Trujillo defends the need for resolutions such as that of the Council of Europe to be transferred to national regulations as soon as possible. “The opposition is saying that there are more and more rules and such. Well, perhaps it will be because Spain should be an example country of the European Union,” he concludes.
