“I have a whole volume of signed appointments. Every two months, we sign one.” For the past ten years, Fernando Casamayor, a procedural clerk in the social courts of Madrid and founder of the DJusticia union, has chained dozens of temporary contracts for the same job position, a reinforcement staff member. He has been working in Justice for 21 years, always as a temporary worker but has not managed to stabilize his position, despite having met the requirements and passed the necessary tests for the job pool. Although the law requires that reinforcement positions become structural after three years and be subject to transfer contests or competitive exams, “they remain in fraud,” he explains.
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This is one of the cases that illustrates the uncertainty in which thousands of temporary public employees currently live after the recent Supreme Court ruling that gives them hope of finally obtaining permanent positions, but with many questions still to be resolved about who and how they can benefit from the measure.
It all comes down to the fact that temporary employment is an endemic problem in Spain’s public administrations. This category of temporary workers is intended to cover transfers of civil servants, leaves, or to temporarily reinforce work teams, as in Casamayor’s case, and is legally limited to three years. But in practice, temporary employment affects jobs of various types and levels of responsibility and, for nearly a million people in Spain, this situation is being extended indefinitely, creating a situation of precariousness and uncertainty that remains unresolved.
“I have a whole volume of signed appointments, every two months we sign one”
Fernando Casamayor
Procedural clerk in the courts of Madrid
This week, the Supreme Court issued a ruling denying automatic permanence to temporary workers in cases of abuse of temporality if they have not previously passed a specific selective process for access to public employment subject to the principles of equality, merit, and ability. “The Spanish Constitution and the Basic Statute of Public Employees would be violated and access to public employment for other citizens would be prevented,” says the ruling, even if contracts have been chained. But those workers in abusive situations who can prove they have passed a competitive exam for permanent positions in the past (in the same category) can legally claim their status as permanent staff.
There are many such cases in education. Rocío Brasero, a preschool teacher, has been working as a temporary worker since 2020, with chained temporary contracts that have led her to work in up to six different centers in the same school year, despite having passed the competitive exam three times with an average score above eight. “We are condemned to temporariness. To aspire to a permanent position, you not only have to pass. You have to earn points by taking other degrees and gaining experience, in addition to repeatedly taking the exams. It is a brutal burden; it affects your mental health,” she says, adding that not everyone can afford to dedicate years to continuous study.
“You have to constantly take exams; it is a brutal burden that affects health”
Rocío Brasero
Preschool teacher
“Positions that are structural are dressed in temporary clothing because they do not perform occasional and conjunctural functions but have stable, ordinary, structural, and responsible duties,” says Javier Arauz, from Arauz Abogados. For this expert, the Supreme Court ruling does not resolve the issue of temporality but will increase litigation. He adds that it excludes those temporary public workers who have accessed their positions through merit contests or processes without eliminatory tests, thus violating the principle of equality.
A structural position is that of Lorenzo Campillo, secretary auditor in a group of three municipalities in the Guadalajara mountains and president of the National Association of Interim Secretaries, Auditors, and Treasurers (Ansiti), which demands permanence for its group. Eleven years ago, he passed his selective process with two tests, did not get the position but has been working through the job pool since then. In the stabilization process, he lost the position, but the person who took office requested a transfer, and he resumed his post. “No one wants these positions in depopulated towns of Spain, and I have already made my life here,” he details. Without him, the town halls would not function, but his position is “temporary.”
“No one wants these positions in depopulated towns of Spain, and I have already made my life here”
Lorenzo Campillo
Secretary auditor
Equally structural are the positions of Nerea Díez de Pinos and her colleague María José Arbués, restorers at the museums of Zaragoza and Huesca, respectively. They obtained their positions, which at the time were labor staff in 2004, “with an exam, tribunal, and merit evaluation,” explains Díez de Pinos, and started as temporary workers. Since then, there has been no selective process allowing them to consolidate their positions. The position changed from labor staff to civil servant, and they continued their work. They filed a lawsuit in 2019 because their labor rights such as seniority were not recognized, and although they obtained certain recognitions, there are bonuses like hardship pay (for working with chemicals) that they do not receive, while their career civil servant colleagues do. They have not been able to stabilize because their position was not counted in the process; they could not apply for it. But they have been able to be rewarded. Arbués received the Order of Civil Merit decoration in 2024, a recognition for those who “carry out their ordinary professional life and work in an exemplary manner, serving society,” albeit as temporary workers. “My colleague has a Civil Merit medal, but not a permanent position,” summarizes Díez de Pinos.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has warned Spain on this issue on numerous occasions, considering that it has maintained a widespread abuse of temporary employment in the Administration for years, especially in health, education, and regional administration, well above the 8% allowed by European regulations.
In 2021, the Government reformed the Basic Statute of Public Employees, limiting temporary employment to three years, launching stabilization processes through merit contests or competitive exams to reduce temporarily occupied positions, and establishing a stricter control regime. The Public Function Ministry assures that these systems are working and that the temporality rate has dropped six points to 32.7%. It adds that it especially affects the autonomous communities, with a rate of 40%.
Nerea Díez de Pinos, restorer at the Zaragoza museum
“My colleague has a Civil Merit medal, but not a permanent position”
The Supreme Court ruling seeks to align with EU jurisprudence, especially after the CJEU issued a new ruling on April 14 insisting that the measures planned to address the use of successive temporary contracts do not comply with European law. The court has given Spain two months, until June 29, to legislate on the temporality of temporary workers or sanctions may be imposed and up to 600 million euros in European funds frozen.
Compensation for dismissal and moral damages, such as discrimination
The Supreme Court ruling recognizes, for those temporary workers who cannot claim permanence, double compensation: for dismissal and for “moral damages” such as discrimination, inability to access promotions, lack of entitlement to bonuses or extras, which could exceed 10,000 euros depending on the case. Javier Arauz states that if the permanence of temporary workers is not recognized, the sanctions could represent “an economic nonsense that places local administrations in a state of technical bankruptcy.” The expert lawyer explains that a court has just declared
the dismissal of a temporary worker in the Community of Madrid unfair and orders the CAM to choose between reinstating the worker with back pay or paying compensation set at 90,767 euros, “just for the dismissal. Adding sanctions for abuse could skyrocket the compensations,” he points out.
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