A judge has convicted a subcontractor of social media giant Meta in Barcelona, CCC Barcelona Services SLU (of the Canadian group Telus International), for discriminating against its workers (employed as content moderators on Facebook) based on their nationality. According to the ruling, to which ElNacional.cat has had access, it has been proven that the company maintains a discriminatory policy over remunerating its workers and that this discrimination is based on their origin. In fact, the company pays in some cases up to 20% more to workers who provide their services in French, Hebrew, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Dutch than the moderators who do the same work in Catalan, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese, as stated in a sentence, issued by the judge of Barcelona social court Number 31, dated March 21st.
This sentence comes after 19 employees of the company filed a complaint to denounce a violation of their fundamental right to equality and non-discrimination in their working conditions. The company - which has 1,954 workers, of which 1,682 are content moderators, 800 of these Spanish speakers - has denied that there is linguistic discrimination and defended itself alleging the difficulty in finding workers in certain languages. The judge condemned the company to pay the 19 moderators compensation of 10,001 euros each to compensate "the moral damages caused as a result of its discriminatory attitude".
The company defended the difference in its salaries by stating that it had to take into account that workers with better salaries could, in their country of origin, "access a higher salary than they could be paid in Spain". Implicit in that argument, says the sentence, is an admission "that the criterion of nationality, in addition to the language to be used, is relevant, since if reference is made to the standard of living of the country of origin to justify a difference in pay salary, nationality is associated with the country of origin and the standard of living there".
The lawyer for the complainants, Enrique Leiva, from the Abógalo law firm in Barcelona, had alleged in his conclusions that all the moderators worked as part of the Meta (Facebook) project, doing the work in the same work centre (Torre Glòries) and on the same floor of the building, regardless of their nationality. "They all perform the same service, even if they convey it through their respective languages". That is why they consider it "discriminatory conduct" that the salaries for group A workers (moderators of Scandinavian, French, Dutch and Hebrew languages) are different from those of group B (moderators of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan languages).
The company tried to stop the judicial procedure by asking to put a preliminary question to the European Court of Justice, on the basis that the discrimination alleged by the moderators is a "new issue for which there are no prior precedents”, reads the text of the sentence. This possibility, however, was denied when the judge considered that in the EU's own regulations, in addition to the internal regulations, there are "normative and interpretative elements to elucidate the discriminatory legal issue" that has been raised. The judge who investigated the case, Fernando Méndez Diestro, defends as a legal basis Article 14 of the Spanish Constitution, which establishes the principle of equality and the prohibition of discrimination. He also underlines Spanish Law 15/2022 on equal treatment and non-discrimination and the articles of one of the fundamental Spanish labour laws, the Workers' Statute, that protect the right of workers not to be discriminated against directly or indirectly, among other reasons, "for reason of language, within the Spanish state".
A pioneering ruling that could have far-reaching effects
Defence lawyer Leiva explained in statements to ElNacional.cat this Tuesday that the sentence is pioneering because it applies "the rule prohibiting non-discrimination on the basis of language" in the "situation of the current practice of all contact centre companies installed in Spain, but more generally in the countries of southern Europe". In the words of the lawyer, this is a kind of "neocolonial business" policy, which, in search of a reduction in costs, consists of relocating companies that should be in northern Europe, where there are "more expensive wage agreements and more rigid trade union struggles, which make salaries more expensive".
Once the company is relocated, the lawyer explains, they set up in large premises that greatly reduce the costs in southern European countries. "The administrations in Spain give them tax benefits and direct subsidies and, once here, they establish a discriminatory salary policy", says the lawyer.
Telus International has until next Friday to lodge an appeal against the sentence and, if it does, the Catalan High Court (TSJC) will rule. The company could still appeal later to the Spanish Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. If the sentence becomes final, the company would have to match the salaries of 800 people in the company. According to the complainants' lawyer, during the court procedure the company defended itself by arguing that a judgment against it could mean that it could not continue to conduct its activity in Spain.
Other cases
This case is not the only one in which Telus International is immersed in Barcelona. A city judge recently upheld a moderator's complaint against the company for serious psychological harm suffered as a result of working as a moderator of violent content. In fact, in recent months the media have reported the high number of company workers who are on leave due to mental health issues arising from the harshness of the images they have to moderate.