The consultation deals with the recognition of pre-employment services. In this regard, it should be noted beforehand that Act No. 70/1978 of 26 December 1978 on the recognition of prior services in the Civil Service applies solely and exclusively to civil servants, by establishing in article 1.1:

“Career officials of the State Administration, the Local Administration, the Institutional Administration, the Justice Department, the Labor Jurisdiction and the Social Security Department are recognized for all the services indistinctly provided by them in those Administrations, prior to the constitution of the corresponding Bodies, Scales or places or their entry into them, as well as the period of practice of the officials who have passed the entrance tests in the Public Administration.”

In the case of interim officials, article 25.2 of Royal Legislative Decree 5/2015, of 30 October, approving the revised text of the Law on the Basic Status of Public Employees (TREBEP), states that:

" [Interim officials] shall be recognized for the three-year period corresponding to the services rendered prior to the entry into force of this Statute, which shall have remunerative effects only from the entry into force of this Statute. "

In pursuance of this provision, and for the purposes of the General Administration of the State, the Joint Instruction of 7 May 2007 of the State Secretariat for Budgets and Expenditure and the General Secretariat for Public Administration was approved for the implementation of article 25.2 of the Act on the Basic Status of Public Employees (now the Consolidated Text), which establishes that they are applicable for the recognition of trienniums to interim officials for the services rendered “the norms of Law 70/1978, of December 26, on the Recognition of Prior Services in the Public Administration and its development regulations”.

Without prejudice to the above, and with regard to labour personnel, Article 7 of the TREBEP states that the regulations applicable to labour personnel in the service of the Public Administrations shall be, “in addition to labour legislation and other conventionally applicable rules, by the precepts of this Statute which so provide.”

I. Labour personnel subject to the Fourth Collective Agreement of the General State Administration (IV CUAGE) or another agreement.

In the case of labour personnel subject to the IV CUAGE, article 59 of the Convention states the following:

“(…) For the purposes of seniority, the services provided in the functional scope of application referred to in Article 1 of this Collective Agreement shall be taken into account as civil servants, acting, and in the practices of the Civil Administration of the State, contingent personnel, personnel hired for fixed employment, hired for temporary employment or hired for administrative purposes under the Civil Servants of the State Act whose articulated text was approved by Decree 315/1964, of 7 February.”

In this way, a regime equivalent to that applicable to civil servants is established for labour personnel subject to the IV CUAGE. Therefore, the recognition of the previous services that the services have been provided in one of the Public Administrations in the terms indicated in Law 70/1978, that are prior to the constitution of the corresponding Bodies, Scales or places or their entry into them and that have been provided as an official or under contracting regime.

In the event that the workforce is subject to another collective agreement, the provisions of the agreement must be complied with.

II. Work personnel out of agreement.

On the other hand, the legal regime of application to labour personnel outside the scope of application of the IV Single Collective Agreement for labour personnel of the AGE (IV CUAGE) in matters of recognition of previous services and that is not subject to another agreement is analyzed.

Given the non-application of the agreement, we must resort to the regulation that, in terms of the recognition of services provided for seniority purposes, the Workers’ Statute and its employment contract make.

The Workers’ Statute in Section IV concerning Wages and Wage Guarantees does not regulate the remuneration structure but refers to collective bargaining or, failing that, to the individual contract the determination of the same. In any case, indicate (art. 26.3) must include:

“the basic wage, as remuneration fixed per unit of time or work and, where appropriate, wage supplements fixed according to circumstances relating to the personal conditions of the worker, the work performed or the situation and results of the company, which shall be calculated according to the criteria agreed for that purpose. Likewise, the consolidability or non-consolidability of these wage supplements will be agreed, not having the character of consolidables, unless otherwise agreed, those linked to the job or to the situation and results of the company.”

Thus, in the absence of regulation of the matter in the ET, in the case of personnel contracted out of agreement, it will be necessary to comply with what appears in their contract of employment, so that in the event that this is provided for in their contract, or in the event that their contract expressly stipulates a referral to the Single Collective Agreement for that matter, seniority will be recognized in the terms established.

In case there is no stipulation in this regard, there will be no recognition of the previous services.

All of the above is without prejudice to remember that, according to the regime of competences of this management center, the answers to queries issued by this general directorate are merely informative and, consequently, do not have the character of a binding criterion, nor do they give rise to rights or expectations of law, nor do they imply any link with the type of procedures to which they refer. In addition, since they are not mandatory or binding, the bodies to which such replies are addressed may, where appropriate, finally take a decision that does not correspond to the opinion contained therein.

The answers to queries contained in this bulletin deal with the issues raised in the light of the regulations in force at the time of their issuance, so that these answers may be affected by subsequent legislative changes or judicial resolutions.