Spain's top court shrinks paid leave for sick relatives, firms win rewrite power

Spain’s Supreme Court just handed employers a loaded eraser: any collective agreement that grants extra paid leave to care for a hospitalised relative can now be trimmed to the bare five-day minimum written into the 2023 labour reform, no union veto required.

The ruling guts travel-day bonuses

TRAGSATEC, the public-sector engineering company, used to give workers three natural days off when a loved one landed in hospital, stretching to six if the worker had to travel. After the reform, management switched to the statutory five working days and deleted the travel top-up. Unions cried foul, arguing the cut should have triggered the heavy consultation procedure reserved for “substantial” changes. The court disagreed. Its 172/2026 verdict brands the move a simple legal alignment, not a downgrade, because five working days can easily equal seven calendar days under the old maths. Translation: the reform is the new ceiling, not the floor.

The ripple effect is instant. Hundreds of collective agreements still promise “convenio” extras—extra days, travel allowances, full calendar counting—yet to be updated. The judgment gives HR departments a green light to push delete without opening article-41 negotiations, provided the new package is “no worse” in the court’s arithmetic.

But workers gain timing flexibility

On the same docket, the court corrected bosses who tried to chain the five days to the first working day after the medical event and force consecutive leave. In a case brought by car-assistance giant RACE, the judges ruled the worker—not the shift supervisor—chooses when the clock starts and whether to split the days. The purpose, they reminded, is care, not corporate convenience.

So the scoreboard tilts: companies can shrink the total slice of leave, yet the employee keeps the knife that cuts it. Labour lawyers are already scanning pending cases; the court itself concedes each agreement must be weighed individually, leaving a wedge for future suits if the recast package truly shortchanges the carer.

The takeaway for anyone clocking in across Spain: your next family emergency could buy you fewer paid days off, but at least you decide when to press pause. The gavel has fallen; collective bargaining tables are the only arena left to claw lost ground.