Some interpretative issues associated with the conventional clauses regulating the compensation granted to workers with permanent disabilities

Abstract

This study focuses on two issues raised by the applicative potential of permanent disability compensation clauses applied to workers via collective bargaining. The first concerns the determination of the definitive or provisional nature of the administrative declaration of permanent disability as a presupposition for the recognition of the beneficiary's right to said conventional improvement. In this regard, a recent pronouncement of the unifying law has highlighted that the clarity of the terms in which the administrative resolution establishes the term for the review of disability is decisive in concluding whether this should have an extinctive or suspensive effect on the employment contract and therefore, depending on such an extreme, the recognition or denial of the worker's right to compensation. The second issue, which is more contentious, relates to the determination of the event which has given rise to the right to compensation. There is no uniform legal criterion related to this last issue, which arbitrarily navigates between different solutions depending on the nature of the contingency suffered by the worker. Furthermore, the different regulation instrument sources related to this specific issue (state regulations, collective autonomy, and private autonomy) make it a particularly complex space to navigate for a legal operator.