The Substantial Modification Procedure as a Valid Channel for the Application of the Appropriate Collective Bargaining Agreement: A Critical Analysis of the Supreme Court Ruling of December 11, 2025
Published 2026-06-29
Keywords
- Collective agreement,
- substantial modification of working conditions,
- unity of entity principle,
- prevailing activity,
- good faith in negotiation
- collective conflict procedure ...More
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Abstract
This study exhaustively analyses the Supreme Court Ruling of December
11, 2025 (appeal 261/2024), a resolution that validates the use of the procedure for substantial modification of working conditions (art. 41 ET) as a suitable instrument to replace a collective agreement that a company had been applying due to error or historical inertia. The legal foundations supporting this ruling are examined: the primacy of the principle of unity of undertaking and prevailing activity over territorial specialty, the strict differentiation between the conventional «opt-out» mechanism (descuelgue) and the full inclusion in a new regulatory framework, and the definition of the standard of good faith required during the consultation period.
Furthermore, it reflects on the procedural guarantees that article 41 ET offers to affected workers as opposed to other procedural avenues, concluding that case law does not grant employers a blank check to choose a collective agreement at will, but rather a guaranteed mechanism for the correction of application dysfunctions.