The uncertain course of Article 84 of the Workers' Statute after the 2021 reform

Abstract

In recent years, collective bargaining in Spain has seen a reversal of the decentralised model introduced in 2012. The 2021 reform removed the priority given to company-level agreements in matters of pay and sparked a protracted dispute over interpretation, exacerbated by successive regulatory interventions. Case law initially established the primacy of sectoral agreements even over earlier company-level agreements, before clarifying this by distinguishing between the absolute priority of company-level agreements in areas of negotiation
that were originally unregulated and their merely relative priority where an active sectoral bargaining unit already existed. The result is unequivocal: the sectoral agreement has regained its central role, particularly in matters of pay, relegating the company agreement to a residual one.