Minority unions can also have institutional representation in government bodies, although they do not reach 10% representation at the national level. This is indicated by a ruling from the Supreme Court that has rejected an appeal filed by the majority confederations CCOO and UGT against the participation of the CSIF, USO and CGT unions in the Sustainable Development Council, the Government’s advisory body for the development of the Agenda 2030.
In this way, as reported this Monday by the CSIF civil servants’ union, the Supreme Court endorses a previous ruling of the National Court of September 27, 2021 that already considered “inadmissible” to use the criterion of greatest representativeness (unions that hold 10 % of representation at the national level) to exclude at the institutional level other organizations that do not reach that percentage, but which, however, are established in a specific area. In this case, CCOO and UGT intended to expel CSIF, USO and CGT from this body.
However, the Supreme Court warns that “the status of the most representative union does not confer a fundamental right to unions that hold it compared to other unions that lack it.” “In other words, the appellants do not have a fundamental right, be it freedom of association or equality before the law, to exclude unions with a lower level of representativeness from participation in bodies and activities other than those that make up the central core of the union function,” adds the text of the ruling.
In fact, the ruling of the National Court, now supported by the High Court, already considered that “the presence of unions and business organizations in the Sustainable Development Council has nothing to do with collective labor relations, nor with negotiations between themselves to autonomously regulate working conditions.”
In conclusion, the Supreme Court understands that the unique legal position of the most representative unions for the purposes of institutional participation does not extend to the assumptions of composition of other participation bodies, whose functions transcend those of promotion and defense of economic and social interests. social rights of working people. The judicial resolution also recalls that the Sustainable Development Council is an administrative body that the law prevents from having decision-making, proposal or control powers, also prohibiting its agreements from having direct effects on third parties.
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