The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid will study whether national police officers have the right to join class unions, such as UGT or CC OO, or if this possibility should remain limited to corporate trade union organizations. The seventh section of the Madrid court will analyze this possibility following an appeal by a police officer affiliated with the Reformist Police Union (SRP), a corporate and minority union within the force. The defense of this officer argues that the inability to join other unions violates the right to freedom of association and the principle of equality, given that local officers and various regional forces (such as the Ertzaintza or the Mossos d’Esquadra) can join these unions and participate in their elections.
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The impossibility for national police officers to join class unions stems from Article 8 of the Organic Law on the personnel regime of the National Police. It states that officers “may only join trade union organizations formed exclusively by national police officers.” “Such organizations may not federate or confederate with others that, in turn, are not composed exclusively of members of the National Police,” the text adds. This restriction connects with Article 1 of the trade union freedom law, which indicates: “The exercise of the right to unionize by members of Security Forces and Corps that do not have a military character shall be governed by their specific regulations, given the armed nature and hierarchical organization of these Institutes.”
This legal basis prevents police officers from joining class unions and running under their acronyms in union elections. Thus, they cannot run for CC OO, UGT, CGT, CNT, ELA, LAB, CSIF, among others, but they can for corporate unions such as the Unified Police Union, Professional Police Union, Federal Police Union, Spanish Police Confederation, or JUPOL, among others.
Another of these corporate unions is SRP, the one mentioned in the legal appeal. Adrià Paños, director of the National Legal Office of SRP, believes that “this admission confirms that there is a substantive legal issue that the courts must examine.” “The restriction affecting national police officers does not respond to any objective or proportional need: it is a limitation that does not exist for other police forces and places National Police officers in an unjustified position of inequality compared to other public employees,” adds Paños. Another common complaint among national police officers is that their salary conditions are not equated with those of other regional police forces, which have better pay.
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SRP explains that, beyond the already confirmed admission in Madrid, a similar appeal is pending admission before the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community. It is worth noting that, as a general rule, corporate unions have the most representation in police forces where class unions can run.
In the case of the Civil Guards and the military, they cannot even join corporate unions. Article 7 of the Organic Law on the rights and duties of members of the Armed Forces states that “the military may not exercise the right to unionize and, consequently, may not found or join unions nor carry out union activities.” The previous article of the same regulation justifies this limitation and elaborates on it: “The military is subject to the duty of political neutrality. They may not found or join political parties and will maintain strict public neutrality regarding the actions of political parties.”
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