Recently, there was a case in which a multinational company dedicated to the “contact center” sector began to deduct from payrolls the time corresponding to the worker’s absences, which led to a lawsuit by the unions.
However, the Supreme Court ruling makes it clear that this cut in payroll for arriving late is justified by the fact that “contact center” services operate on the basis of commercial contracts with clients that are based on hours, or even half hours, therefore unjustified delays can cause penalties for the company, without the staff, once their schedule is set, having the right to provide services at another time to compensate for their lack of punctuality.
This ruling considers that if the worker is repeatedly unpunctual, it may cause harm to the company, which has committed to providing a service in the time slots agreed with the clients, therefore it would be a breach of contract, which if repeated, justifies the reduction of the payroll.
On the other hand, this ruling by the Supreme Court makes it clear that if the delays have some justification, such as accompanying relatives to medical consultations, this type of sanction will not be applied, and therefore nothing will be deducted from the payroll.