Cases In Which Your Company Can Fire You While You Are On Leave

When a worker is on leave due to illness or another type of illness, the company has to pay him his salary during the first days. However, a more or less known practice is that of firms that take the opportunity to fire said worker while he is recovering.

Dismissal of workers on sick leave is often illegal and therefore claimable. The reason is that a worker cannot be fired for the simple fact of being on leave , despite the fact that this entails an extra expense for the company (either for the payment of the salary when it corresponds or, in addition, that of a substitute during the time of absence).

However, there are cases in which the company may have the right to do so , as reported by the specialized law firm Campmany Abogados . For that to happen, bad faith from the employee must occur, which could lead to what is known as a disciplinary dismissal.

The most frequent reason is the simulation of said sick leave or the exaggeration of the sick leave to make it easier for the worker to deceive the company in order to take an extra vacation, work in another job, travel …

It is in these cases when the company can claim a proper dismissal, since the worker commits a fraud against which it will be difficult to claim nullity in court. If the employer also has evidence of negligence, escaping from dismissal will be an almost impossible mission.

How you should act in an unfair dismissal
The situation may arise, however, that the company dismisses the worker without any real reason for the dismissal, either suspecting (wrongly) that he has faked his illness or accident or retaliating for the simple fact of taking the leave.

Here the worker will be able to go with everything for the company, which will be incurring an unfair dismissal. The employee has the right to demand the nullity of the dismissal , in the same way that the company can fire you, even if it has to backtrack later.

If the company decides to take that step, the worker must be prepared and act accordingly: they must sign the dismissal letter as non-compliant and demand the payment of the severance pay and the compensation to which they are entitled.