Comment
I. The issue at hand.
In the context of a new collective dispute arising from the provisions of the Third Nationwide Collective agreement tion for the Contact Center Sector (BOE, June 9, 2023), the issue at hand is to determine what happens when a public holiday falls during the period in which employees are taking their vacation in calendar days:
“The issue to be clarified here is simply whether, in cases where a public holiday as provided for in section 2 of Article 37 of the Labor Code falls during the vacation period of a person covered by the Contact Center’s Collective Bargaining Agreement No. III agreement , that person is entitled to an additional vacation day, since vacation time and public holiday time are separate types of time off serving different purposes, in accordance with the criteria set forth in our Supreme Court of Labor and Social Security Rulings 88 and 90/2026 of May 9, regarding weekly rest and public holidays; or, conversely, since both Article 38 of the Labor Code and Article 29 of the third agreement collective bargaining agreement for the Contact Center specify that vacation days are counted in calendar days, these days absorb public holidays.”
discussion arose because the plaintiff union argues that the recent doctrine of the National Court also applies in these cases, according to which, in the event of an overlap between labor holidays and weekly rest days, workers are entitled to additional days off when such a circumstance has not been provided for by the General Labor Directorate ( business ) (for example, in the process of preparing the corresponding annual work calendars). Regarding this specific issue, see, among others, SSAN 88/2026, dated May 19 (aut. 134/2026), 90/2026, dated May 19 (aut. 73/2026), 128/2026, dated July 10 (Act 171/2026), or 130/2026, dated July 13 (Act 147/2026), which follow the case law established in Supreme Court Ruling 265/2026, dated March 11 (Case No. 106/2025).
II. The basic legal " framework " of reference letter.
Leaving aside for now the citation of other supranational legal provisions to which the National Court expressly refers in its ruling (along with Art. 40.2 of the Spanish Constitution, Arts. 3.3 and 6 of the agreement 132 of the ILO, Art. 31.2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and Art. 7 of Directive 2003/88/EC), the basic legal framework s of reference letter are established by Articles 37.2 and 38.1 of the Workers’ Statute (“ET”), as well as by article 29 of the applicable collective agreement . According to the first two statutory articles cited, it is well known that:
“Public holidays, which shall be paid and non-recoverable, may not exceed fourteen per year, two of which shall be local holidays. In any case, the following will be observed as national holidays: Christmas, New Year’s Day, May 1 ( work ’s Day), and October 12 (Spain’s National Day). “The period of paid annual leave, which may not be substituted for monetary compensation, shall be as agreed upon in a collectiv agreement or individual contract. Under no circumstances shall the duration be less than thirty calendar days.”
For its part, the third of the cited articles expressly states the following:
“Vacation time will total thirty-two calendar days (…) Four separate days may be taken—either individually or together—on any business day of the year, as mutually agreement agreed upon between business and applicant.”
III. The Importance of Whether Vacation Time Is Spontaneous or Planned.
As can easily be inferred, the applicable collective agreement has intended for vacation days to generally refer to calendar days, rather than business days. And only when it deemed it appropriate did it provide for vacation days to be taken on working days in isolation. This provision is of extraordinary importance to the National Court, given that calendar days include both working days and non-working days (including labor holidays and weekly rest days):
“Under the conventional regime granted to the authorized collective entities, it is not possible to reach the conclusion advocated by the UGT in its complaint, since the provision establishes vacation days in calendar days rather than business days, and calendar days include both those on which there is an obligation to provide services and those on which there is not, that is, those that fall on weekends or holidays; this must be considered in light of the wording contained in Article 5.2 of the Civil Code, which states that ‘In the civil calculation of time periods, non-business days are not excluded.’ This conclusion is supported by the fact that when the negotiating parties intended to re reference letter s to “working days or business days,” they expressly did so; thus, paragraph 3 of the provision in question re reference letter s to the possibility of taking four separate days off on working days, which means that the wording of the agreement is consistent with the intent of the negotiating parties.”
For obvious reasons, if vacation time is defined (by convention or contract) as business days, there will be no issues internship whatsoever, since it will not be possible for vacation time to overlap with labor holidays.
IV. — Resolution of the issue raised: there is no right to additional days off.
Based on the foregoing, the National Court concludes that its doctrine regarding the overlap between public holidays and weekly rest periods cannot be extended to cover the overlap between public holidays and vacation time. This is for the following reasons:
i.—Article 38.1 of the Workers’ Statute (ET) establishes a minimum necessary right by setting vacation time at 30 calendar days, including holidays, which is more than met by the applicable sectoral agreement , just as it meets the three weeks required by Article 3.3 of ILO agreement 132 and the four weeks required by Article 7 of Directive 2003/88.
ii.—Since Directive 2003/88 does not regulate rest periods on public holidays, any overlap between such rest periods and annual leave falls outside the scope of European Union law, just as is the case with the leave provided for in Article 37.3 of the Workers’ Statute [CJEU Judgment of June 4, 2020 (Case C-588/18)].
iii.- The only reference letter reference to time off on holidays in the rules and regulations document cited is the one contained in Article 6 of the agreement 132 ILO Convention, which states that “Official holidays or those established by custom, whether or not they coincide with annual leave, shall not be counted as part of the minimum annual paid vacation prescribed in paragraph 3 of article 3 of this agreement,” from which it cannot be inferred that the overlap of a public holiday with vacation entitles the employee to an additional day off, but only that the existence of a issue specific number of public holidays is not counted for the purposes of calculating the three weeks referred to reference letter in Article 3.3 of the same.
iv.— The requirement for a “ agreement ” between an employee and a “ business ” in order to take vacation time justifies any inequality between employees whose vacation time does not overlap with any public holiday and those who have one or more such overlaps.
Although based on different lines of reasoning, the National Court’s ruling is consistent with the one recently issued by the Murcia High Court of Justice on June 30, 2026 (Case No. 402/2026), which interpreted a specific provision of the agreement:
“ staff ’s vacation entitlement in this sector is 31 days; and it is expressly quotation that these days are calendar days, since this was expressly agreed upon, with no provision for the deduction of holidays. In the context of the collective bargaining agreement provision, there is no doubt that the calculation of vacation days as calendar days includes both workdays and public holidays, without any provision for deduction; furthermore, had this been the intention of the signatories to the agreement —which is not on record—it would have been specified therein (…) reference letter ing the Supreme Court’s Judgment No. 997/2024 of July 9 as the basis for granting the claim is not admissible; the aforementioned Judgment refers to a completely different case, since summary establishes that the minimum weekly rest period should not overlap with annual public holidays, but this does not apply to vacation time.”
V. Conclusions.
First: The existing judicial doctrine regarding the effects of an overlap between public holidays and weekly rest periods cannot be applied to an overlap between public holidays and vacation days.
Second: For this reason, unless otherwise provided (by collective bargaining agreement or contract), an overlap between labor holidays and vacation days does not entitle an employee to additional days off.
