an entrepreneur of The Prat of Llobregat has been sentenced to three months of jail for boycotting some union elections among your template. The employer, of Portuguese origin and owner of a company specializing in aircraft towing, cleaning and maintenance services, threatened his employees with dismiss to a quarter of the staff if they voted for the candidates of CCOO in the union elections, according to a sentence to which EL PERIÓDICO has had access.
The plant took the case to court and the criminal court number 28 of Barcelona has sentenced the businessman for violating the syndical freedom of workers, a right included in the Constitution as fundamental, as well as the criminal type of conditioned threats. During the trial, the convicted person backtracked and contradicted during his version and practically pretended not to understand Spanish. The sentence may be appealed by the convicted person in the first instance.
The facts date back to 2019, when in society Groundl Spain SL Union elections are held to renew the works council in the center of El Prat de Llobregat. So the sole owner and administrator of the firm convenes two workers’ assemblies in which he threatens to fire a quarter of the staff if they end up voting for the CCOO candidates. What the owner did not see was that one of the employees recorded him during his speech.
alleged misunderstanding
After the threats and once the employer found out that he had been recorded, he issued a circular expressing his respect for union voting rights. “Unfortunately, the objective of the meeting was not correctly understood& rdquor ;, the statement read. A version that, given the recorded audios of the businessman threatening the workers, the magistrate rejected outright. “The enmity and animosity was more than obvious”, criticizes the magistrate in his sentence.
The judge also criticized the excuses given by the businessman, alleging that due to his Portuguese origin he had not expressed himself well and it had all been a misunderstanding. Since during the trial, the finally convicted person came to correct the interpreter in some of his translations for not being sufficiently adjusted to what he wanted to say. “In addition, in the available audio recordings, there is no difficulty in expressing oneself,” the court ruling states.
“In short, there are no doubts of conviction that, indeed, he said it, nor that the intention to do so was crystal clear, to achieve an electoral result different from the one that had worked until then,” the judge concluded.
the intention is what matters
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The sentence develops the concept of coercion and discards the arguments of the defendant, who hid behind the fact that he subsequently failed to materialize his threat of dismissed. “The idea that a letter […] suppress a crime already consummated & rdquor ;, the magistrate snaps at the businessman. “What must be analyzed is the malicious conduct of intimidating in order to obtain a certain purpose, regardless of whether it is obtained or not & rdquor ;, he adds.
“From CCOO de Catalunya we will not tolerate any type of anti-union conduct, and we will continue to take measures against these business practices and in defense of the social and labor rights of the working class,” the center assessed in a statement on Thursday.