The Workers’ Commissions has announced that it will lead to justice for the control it exerts on the devices assigned to them, as well as the outgoing emails they send. In the opinion of this central, the company “exceeds its powers of control” with these practices, and therefore will denounce it to the National Court, after qualifying as “insufficient” the modifications that this company raised as a solution during the two meetings that they held in this regard in the Sima (Interconfederal Service of Mediation and Arbitration).
“Nestlé Spain ensures that the use of technological resources in the company does not generate any right of privacy or confidentiality to working persons, which is contrary to article 18.1 of the Constitution, to article 87.1 of Organic Law 3/2018 and the consolidated jurisprudential doctrine,” they point out from the CC OO industry federation. Similarly, they also reject the company’s argument that defends its power to “on the content of the devices assigned to working people and outgoing emails”, since these are accessible from the company’s systems. Something that, in the opinion of CC OO, is “an interference in the most intimate sphere of workers.”
Article 20 bis of the Workers’ Statute recognizes the right to privacy in the use of digital devices that the employer has made available to them. That is, although the computer and email are from the company, the worker does not lose his intimacy with the use.
The last match held by both parties has taken place this morning, a Més after the previous one held at the end of July, and in which other unions such as UGT and CSIF adhered to the CC OO manifesto. However, the conversations in the Sima – a kind of neutral table in which labor conflicts are settled to prevent them from reaching courts – have not been enough for workers’ representatives, since, in their opinion, the changes raised by the company were “merely cosmetic” and did not withdraw the clauses “that injured the current legislation on fundamental rights and data protection.” In addition to this, they have added that the current guidelines of Nestlé “ignore the obligations derived from the artificial intelligence regulations of the European Union.
Legal collision
The confrontation dates back to June 23, when CC OO warned the Food Company that the annex to the Global Safety Policy of the end user who intended to put into operation collided with the fundamental rights of working people and exceeded the legally established framework for business control. As a solution, the union proposed to the address that only the communications content was accessed and the devices when there was a founded suspicion that a serious labor breach had occurred. And that, whenever this happened, the working person and their representatives were previously informed, under the principles of suitability, need and proportionality.
Given this, the company promised to review this control policy, and cited again with the unions for September 5. Arrival this date, the changes proposed by the company have not satisfied the union demands, and it will finally be the justice that must resolve this conflict.
