The proximity of the summer holidays is associated in many jobs with the collection of extra summer pay, a true economic boost for workers that does not respond to a whim or a kind gesture from the company: it is an entire labor right that It is even recognized in the Workers’ Statute.
The text that regulates the relations of workers with their companies that employees have the right to receive two extraordinary bonuses a year. That is to say, that the workers have recognized the collection of at least two extra payments.
The Statute explains that one of the two payments must be made “on the occasion of the Christmas holidays” and that the other remaining payment (if there were no more) must be paid to the worker “in the month established by collective agreement or by agreement between the employer and the legal representatives of the workers.
It is this last extra pay that we are talking about in the case of the summer extra pay. That it is this date and not another can have multiple explanations, but the Workers’ Statute gives one as good as any other. In its article 29 it explains that the payment of the salary “will be made punctually and documented on the date and place agreed or in accordance with the uses and customs”.
The precedents of the Franco dictatorship
In the case of the summer pay there is a distant precedent: in 1947, during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, the payment of an extra pay was approved coinciding with the anniversary of the Coup d’état against the Second Republic (July 18). . This gratification, which was intended to “solemnize” the date known as the Labor Exaltation Festival, was one week’s salary.
This summer pay, however, also already had a precedent within the Franco dictatorship… that of the Christmas pay, which began to be paid according to regulations on Christmas 1945 (after being approved in an extraordinary way in 1944). also to “solemnize” the date and arguing that “fundamental reasons of social justice” made its definitive establishment essential, as explained in the Order of December 9.
These “fundamental reasons of social justice” were the words with which the Franco regime described the situation of need of families in a post-war economy that suffered a devaluation of workers’ wages.
Thus, although the two extra bonuses of the Franco dictatorship often tend to be considered as the origin of the extra pay that Spaniards currently receive, the truth is that these measures obeyed very specific reasons (the fight against the devaluation of wages and the celebration of a holiday) even despite its maintenance over the years.
Regardless of the economic context, the payment periods for extra payments and their current structure were established as we now know them in the Workers’ Statute approved in 1980 (subject to multiple modifications in subsequent decades).
When do you get your extra summer pay if you have them prorated?
Probably, some of the people who have reached this paragraph want to call the editor’s attention: “How do you pay extra? If I don’t charge you pay extra!”. Although it is true that many people receive their annual salary in only 12 monthly payments, that does not mean that they do not receive extra payments.
The Workers’ Statute indicates that the payment of wages at Christmas and on another date (which usually coincides with the summer) can be made on a prorated basis during the 12 months of the year “it may be agreed in a collective agreement”.
Thus, in the event that the collective agreement that applies to the worker includes the apportionment of the extra payments, between the months of June and July they will not receive the usual summer pay (just as they will not receive the Christmas pay in December), but for the simple reason that, instead of that, you will be charging them from month to month. In summary: that workers who have prorated payments obviously see their right to extra payments fulfilled, although with a different periodicity of payment.