Working practices in spain-The tea break

To those that have worked or are working in spain

The working practice of nipping out of the office /Bar for a quick cartado/café is this a labour law like the tea break in some countries or are employers just expected to grant this. Secondly, with the number of Spanish that smoke is smoking in the office permitted or does the employer have a duty to provide a smoking room or more importantly allow time for the employee to take a smoking break.

There are agreements between almost each company and the trade unions for which every labourer has the right to make a stop of 15 minutes every X hours of work (to smoke, have a coffe or whatever).

Smoking is forbidden by law in the working zones, and will soon be forbidden in the whole working building (so you will have to go out of your office building to have a cigarrette).

In practice, coffee breaks are common and longer than 15 minutes, in some offices smoking is allowed (specially if all the workers smoke). In big corporations there are smoking rooms and the laws are strictly respected.

Spain is slowly becoming an ugly place for smokers in their working hours. Break customs are not going to change in the near future. We usually work (in practice) from 8,30 to 19,00-22,00, so coffee breaks are more than necessary.

Fernando