Gloria now confesses that she "didn't have much hope" of winning the legal battle against her company. If she did, she knew she would be a pioneer. "I am very happy, it's a great achievement", she says over the phone after the victory. On November 18, the Social Court number 2 in Santander ruled in her favor. It allowed her to modify her work schedule to take care of her granddaughter, making her the protagonist of the first sentence in Spain that recognizes grandparents' right to work-life balance.
Gloria María Lobeto is 58 years old, works as a salesperson in a phone store located in a shopping center, and lives in Torrelavega (Cantabria). At home, there are four people: she, her two daughters, Amanda and Aixa, aged 19 and 25, and a 19-month-old granddaughter, Layla, her eldest daughter's child. "My daughter is in her second year of a medium degree to become a judo teacher, she practices judo, started at six years old, and wants to pursue that. Her training starts at 6:00 p.m.," she explains why her daughter couldn't take care of the little one in the afternoons.
Her schedule also didn't allow her to take care of her granddaughter. It was impossible during the two weeks a month she worked the afternoon shift. On the weeks she had the morning shift, she could make it home in time before her daughter had to leave, on the week she finished work at 4:30 p.m. but not at 5:30 p.m. She could, therefore, take care of her granddaughter one week a month. The rest of the time, the child had to go to daycare, she explains.
Until May 2023 when a Royal Decree-law transposed, among others, the European directive on work-life balance, which resulted in the modification of article 38.4 of the Workers' Statute. "The company's unions had given us the new article, and we had it posted in the store. I read it over and over and came to the conclusion that I had the right to change my work schedule," Gloria says.
In the article, there were key words that were not there before. It recognized the "right to request adaptations to the duration and distribution of the workday" not only for parents but also for "the spouse or partner" and, most importantly for Gloria, to "relatives by blood up to the second degree of the working person." Thus, the rule opened the door for requesting work-life balance to take care of nieces, nephews, siblings, or grandchildren, as she wanted.
Gloria read the fine print, which explained the process. The worker, as the Workers' Statute article on the store wall stated, had to request the schedule modification from the company, after which a "negotiation process" would open, to be carried out with "the utmost speed," and must be resolved within "a maximum period of 15 days". The company had to respond in writing, either accepting the proposal, offering an alternative to meet the conciliation needs, or refusing. In the latter cases, the company had to justify "the objective reasons on which the decision is based."
Gloria wasted no time in submitting her demand to the employers since the Royal Decree-law was dated May 2023, and on the 6th of that month, she made her first request via email. She didn't seem to ask for a huge change in her work schedule. Basically, she asked for her exit time to be moved up to 4:30 p.m. on the morning shift week when she finished at 5:30 p.m., allowing her to properly care for her granddaughter during the two weeks of the month she had the morning shift. She didn't request changes for the two weeks she worked the afternoon shift.
"That would affect my colleagues a lot, and I didn't want to harm others who also have their lives," says Gloria. To her first request, the company promptly replied the next day, saying no. They argued that her request made it impossible for them to cover the commercial schedule as there were already three people with reduced hours - all three mothers - out of the five assigned to the center. "The care of third-degree relatives should prevail at all times," the company pointed out.
To Gloria's second appeal, they responded with another denial, adding: "To meet your request, your children should be under 12 years old." Gloria made a third attempt - this year, on May 27 - and after being denied again, she turned to the USO-Cantabria union, with whom she went to court with lawyer Laura Cubas.
The trial took place on November 13, and five days later, on the 18th, Judge Nuria Perchin issued a ruling in her favor. The ruling is based on the fact that article 34.8 of the Workers' Statute recognizes the right of a worker to modify their work schedule to care for a child up to 12 years old if there is a second-degree blood relationship between them, as was Gloria's case.
The judge explains that the worker cannot impose the "unilateral modification of their workday," and the company is not obligated to do so if it is "excessively burdensome" for their organization. This is not the case for Gloria's employer, who, in the judge's opinion, does not sufficiently justify their refusal in their responses. "The organizational reasons that the company mentions in its letter are not sufficient to dismiss the claim," the ruling reads. "Their denial cannot be based on the increase or modification of the shifts of the claimant's full-time colleagues, as such an effect is normally inherent to the debated schedule adaptation and would systematically lead to its hindrance," it adds.
"The right had been recognized since the Royal Decree-law was approved, but no one had requested it until now, at least as far as we know. I have searched extensively in case law and have found nothing," says Laura Cubas, the lawyer who represented Gloria. "For conciliation purposes, it is important that it be extended to different relatives based on the real-life situations, where many grandparents take care of their grandchildren and are still of working age," she adds about a ruling that has also been interpreted as a triumph for the right to work-life balance of non-traditional families. "In this case, it was a single-parent family, but the ruling does not grant this right due to the circumstances of the families themselves; it grants it because there is an article that supports it. Grandparents who do not live with the child can also request it," explains the lawyer.