If you have to be a member or president of a polling station in these next regional and municipal elections on May 28, you should know that you have certain rights. If you work this Sunday, you also have certain rights that protect you to exercise your right to vote.
Next Sunday, May 28, 2023, municipal elections will be held throughout Spain and several autonomous Communities (Aragón, Asturias, Canarias, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Valencian Community, Extremadura, Illes Balears, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, Navarra, and in the Autonomous Cities of Ceuta and Melilla). Although voting is a fundamental right recognized in the Constitution, there may also be some interference with your work, whether you want to vote but work on Sunday, or if you have to be part of a polling station and work.
What to do if you have a polling station
If you have had an election, they will have already sent you all the documentation on the functions and schedules for the next elections. Taking into account that this is a practically inexcusable duty, it is necessary to know that the presidents and members of the polling stations for the elections on May 28, which are held this Sunday, will have a reduction the following day. Specifically, they will be entitled to a five-hour reduction in their work day the day immediately after, Monday the 29th in this case.
In the case of workers with night shifts, the night shift that begins on the day of the vote is computed as the working day of the election day, the right to reduce the work day by five hours can be exercised in the following night shift, as long as this shift begins the day immediately after the election. In both cases, these reduced hours do not entail a reduction in salary, so you will receive your salary in full.
If you have to work on Sunday and you have been summoned to the polling station, you will have to be present when it is set up. In other words, if you have to be at a table in the elections, that day you will be exempt from having to go to work, and these hours will also be paid by your company.
In the event that you have to be part of a polling station, you will receive financial compensation that is higher than last year. They will receive financial compensation for diet, which this year will be 70 euros.
workers on election day
All people have the recognized right to be absent from their job for as long as it is necessary to vote in the elections. That is why if the hours in which the polling stations open (from 09:00 to 20:00) you have to work, the law allows you to “escape”. In addition, it is a paid leave to exercise your right to vote, so those hours cannot be deducted from the payroll at the end of the month.
Can the company deny me? In no case. The right to vote is inalienable and the company can be penalized if it is denied. Article 37.3 of the Workers’ Statute establishes that workers may be absent from work, with the right to remuneration, and for the necessary time, “for the fulfillment of an inexcusable duty of a public and personal nature, including the exercise of active suffrage. When a certain period is stated in a legal or conventional norm, it will be subject to what is provided in terms of the duration of the absence and its financial compensation.
There is no fixed amount that estimates what is considered “the essential time”. As a general rule, if the work period coincides between two and four hours with the voting day, the worker will have a two-hour permit. If it coincides between four and six hours, he will have three free hours. If it exceeds six hours, the free time amounts to four hours.
