For a few years now, Catalonia has sought to maintain the Catalan language in conversations. Recent studies describe a situation in which it is spoken less and less, so the initiative wants to promote the language and help those who have problems understanding it. By repeating conversations, the user would end up keeping the song. However, this proposal has ended with an unexpected consequence.
This Friday morning, the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia (TSXG) has endorsed the dismissal of a teleoperator from A Coruña for insulting a client who insisted on speaking in Catalan. The events occurred on February 2, 2022, when a worker at Traffic New Technology (TNT), a commercial telephone marketing services company, ended a conversation with a person in bad manners, committing a “very serious” offense according to his employers.
“Go fuck yourself, pro-independence,” were the words spoken by the person fired, according to the sentence to which the newspaper Confidencial Digital has had access. Five days later, on February 7, he was subjected to a “disciplinary dismissal for the commission of a very serious infraction.” In response, the worker filed a lawsuit to declare it void, alleging that his right to moral integrity and non-discrimination had been violated.
The affected person appeared at the Lugo Social Court, providing evidence that he was suffering excessive pressure in the workplace and that, in addition, he was also negatively affected by his upcoming fatherhood. “In the company there was a climate of tension and unsustainable pressure. The company was aware of the worker’s current desperation,” the worker’s defense provided, attaching a chat in which he commented on “his concern and frustration due to the pressure.”
However, the TSXG ended up dismissing said lawsuit, believing its reason was insufficient and considering that no type of legal ruling had occurred. “Feeling stressed or overwhelmed with a job has a very important subjective component, which has not been shown to have been caused either by an increase in objectives or by a change in the work procedure,” the document stated, before investigating the reason for dismissal: the insult.
“This is unacceptable and prohibited behavior, not only in this workplace but in any sphere of life,” the court states. In fact, the teleoperator did not deny in any way the words he addressed to the client, considered by the judicial body as a reason for the dismissal. In this way, he has declared it admissible and the Social Court has rejected the appeal, in addition to fully confirming the ruling of the Social Court of Lugo.
