The Supreme Court and payrolls

The Supreme Court allows companies to send pay slips in digital format and rejects the obligation to deliver them on paper. The ruling, dated December 1, 2016, declines that it entails a prejudice or a nuisance for the worker. «It cannot be considered burdensome for the latter since, if he wants a copy of the payslip on paper, he only has to give the order to print on the computer and wait a few seconds for the printing to take place,» it stresses.

Thus, the Supreme Court changes the doctrine in this regard through a judgment of December 22, 2011, which upheld the right to receive the payroll on paper. «The criterion changes in view of the time elapsed since it was dictated and the generalization of the use of computer support instead of paper support to store and communicate data, documents or decisions profusely used both in the private sphere and in the Public Administration», explains the judge Segoviano.

The ruling points out that the delivery of the receipt in computer support fulfills the purpose of providing the worker with a copy of the salary receipt. In this sense, it invokes the explanatory memorandum of the Order of the Ministry of Labor of December 27, 1994, and recalls that «it is necessary to guarantee a record of the worker's receipt of the liquidated amounts and due transparency in the worker's knowledge of the different concepts of payment and discount that make up such liquidation».

The matter arose when the company Transportes Unidos de Asturias, dedicated to passenger transport in the urban lines of the municipality of Oviedo, changed in February 2013 its payroll communication system, which until then was introduced in the individual mailboxes of each worker. From that date onwards, it began to include the payrolls in the personal account of each worker, which they could access through a computer terminal located next to the mailboxes by entering their ID card and personal password.

The Supreme Court understands that «the operation, which previously consisted of opening the mailbox by means of a key, is now carried out by entering the ID number and the password in the computer terminal, which does not harm the worker». The union, however, alleged a violation of the Workers' Statute and of the Ministerial Order that approved the model of individual receipt justifying the payment of wages. The workers argued that the company could not unilaterally replace the long-standing practice of providing workers with salary receipts or pay slips directly on paper with the new possibility of using computers.

«None of the rules whose infringement the appellant alleges contains any requirement with respect to the format in which the pay slips must be delivered to the workers», states Judge Segoviano. «That is to say, the delivery to the worker of an individual receipt justifying the payment of the salary, in the model approved by the Ministry of Labor, is required, but the support in which this receipt is to be delivered is not established», he adds.

In any case, the Supreme Court recognizes that «it might appear» that delivery on paper is required in Article 2 of the Ministerial Order. «However, this appearance is then distorted, where it states that when the payment is made by bank transfer, the employer shall give the employee a duplicate of the receipt without requesting his signature, which shall be understood to be replaced, for the purposes set forth in the previous paragraph, by the receipt of payment issued by the bank», it concludes.