A ruling by a Spain’s National High Court court means workers in the country will no longer miss out on ‘festivos’ that fall one Saturdays.
A Spanish court has ruled that public holidays that fall on a Saturday must be given to employees in the customer service sector as an extra day off.
Spain’s National High Court earlier in May ruled that public holidays falling on a Saturday must be compensated and entitle employees to an additional day off, in a judgement addressing a dispute brought against the collective agreement for the customer service sector, notably call centre workers.
The National Court has thus ruled in favour of trade unions in the various claims brought against the Association of Customer Experience Companies (CEX).
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Employees are therefore entitled to ensure that public holidays “are not absorbed or offset by the weekly rest period, with employers being obliged to grant an additional day of actual rest where the two coincide or overlap”.
The ruling by the high court, dated 19th May, declares the widespread practice among companies in the ‘contact centre’ sector of not compensating for public holidays of any kind, whether national, regional or local, to be unlawful “when the actual provision of services takes place from Monday to Friday or from Monday to Saturday and the public holiday falls on a Saturday, which is the day set aside for their weekly rest”.
USO has stated in a press release that the ruling, which it considers applicable to all sectors, “generally consolidates the legal doctrine that prevents companies from eliminating public holidays through work rosters”.
“All workers must be able to enjoy the fourteen annual public holidays in full, regardless of their usual working hours,’ said USO’s Secretary for Trade Union Action and Employment, Sara García.
Each year in Spain there are 8 national public holidays, with another 4 decided by the regional government and a further 2 by the municipal authority.
That means that in Spain there are generally 14 public holidays in total, though until this ruling many sectors failed to honour that if they fell on weekends.
Spain’s Supreme Court had already set out the legal criteria regarding the overlap of the weekly rest day with a public holiday in its ruling of April 2025, but without specifying anything regarding Saturdays.
That ruling stated that workers with a working week from Monday to Sunday, whose weekly rest day is fixed between Monday and Friday, are entitled to compensation when that rest day coincides with a public holiday, and may take another day off in lieu of that public holiday.
