Mercadona fined over store managers who did not clock in

A Mercadona store manager with more than 30 years at the company asked in September 2024 to clock in on his supermarket’s device, like the rest of the staff. The company refused. His working hours, he was told, were the ones shown in the “DÓNDE” (Spanish for “where”), an Excel planning sheet. The Labour Inspectorate then issued an infringement report (acta de infracción) against Mercadona for a serious infringement of article 7.5 of the LISOS (Spanish Labour Infringements and Penalties Act) due to the lack of working time records, and the report was upheld with a fine of €3,750. Mercadona has lodged an administrative appeal (recurso de alzada), so the fine is not yet final.

The Inspectorate’s fine appears in the proven facts (hechos probados) of STSJ CV 3722/2026, of 8 September (TSJ of the Valencian Community, the region’s High Court of Justice, appeal 609/2026), although the lawsuit itself was about something else. The store manager, who worked in Paterna (Valencia), was asking for his contract to be terminated with severance pay, alleging several breaches by the company, including the one concerning working time records. Mercadona won that case. The Valencia Court of First Instance dismissed the claim in January and the TSJ has now upheld that decision, without going so far as to say that the Excel sheet is a valid record.

How working time was recorded for store managers

At the store, staff clocked in on an electronic system. The coordinators or store managers did not. The only written trace of their working day was the DÓNDE, a cloud-based Excel sheet that only recorded schedules different from the usual one, rest days, public holidays and medical appointments. The actual start and finish times of each day were nowhere in it.

The system had union backing. In 2022 the company signed a time recording agreement with the workers’ representatives for these roles, based on a weekly planner. In return for that availability they received a position-based pay supplement (complemento de puesto), which in the claimant’s case amounted to €4,278.05 a month in 2024.

What the store manager asked for and what happened next

On 26 September 2024 the coordinator asked in writing to be allowed to clock in at the store so that he could prove the extra hours he was working. His argument was that the DÓNDE said where he was, not how much he worked. The company replied the same day that his working hours were the ones in the planner, that he had the autonomy to organise his own time and that the supplement already compensated him for his availability.

He then did two things:

• He filed an overtime claim for the period from September 2023 to September 2024. The trial is scheduled for December 2026.
• Together with other workers, he filed a complaint with the Labour Inspectorate, which issued the infringement report with the €3,750 fine.

What the TSJ decides on working time records

The Chamber recalls that article 34.9 of the Workers’ Statute requires the daily recording of “el horario concreto de inicio y finalización de la jornada de trabajo de cada persona trabajadora” (“the specific start and finish time of each worker’s working day”). Even so, it refuses to terminate the contract. It gives weight to the fact that there is an agreement signed with the unions, that the Inspectorate’s fine is not final and that, in an earlier case involving another coordinator, the Chamber itself had accepted the planner as evidence. It concludes that “las particularidades atinentes al registro horario del actor no pueden servir de apoyo a la extinción postulada” (“the particular features of the claimant’s time recording cannot support the termination sought”), regardless of the outcome of the overtime case.

The judgment only decides whether the system is a breach serious enough for the worker to leave with severance pay, and it concludes that it is not. Whether the DÓNDE complies with the law will be decided by the Labour Inspectorate, with the appeal still pending, and by the court that will hear the overtime claim in December.

Why winning this case does not validate the planner as a working time record

In our view, a planner that only notes exceptions describes the hours that were supposed to be worked, while the hours actually worked go undocumented. If the store manager opened at 6 and stayed on to close, the Excel sheet only shows what someone decided to note down. If in December he comes to court with good circumstantial evidence, such as emails sent at odd hours or openings and closings that can be cross-checked against other store data, the burden can shift, as we explain in our article on the reversal of the burden of proof in overtime claims. The company would have to rebut his calculation with an Excel sheet that has no start or finish times.

Mercadona went into this case with a union agreement, a supplement of more than €4,000 a month and the resources to litigate through two levels of court. Even with all that, the Inspectorate issued its report. An SME with a similar rota is unlikely to have any of those advantages.

Had the store managers clocked in at the store, the Inspectorate would have had no grounds for a report over missing records, and the overtime case would be decided on the basis of the clock-in data, as happened in the case of the Mercadona manager whose time records helped him dismantle an accusation of lateness.

Middle managers must keep a working time record too

The coordinator in this judgment had an ordinary permanent contract, and the Ministry of Labour’s Guide only excludes from the recording obligation senior executives (alta dirección) under a special employment relationship. Supervisors, store managers and team leaders clock in just like everyone else, even if they organise their own time. We go through it case by case in do executives and supervisors have to clock in?.

The flexibility argument does not work either, because article 34.9 requires the record “sin perjuicio de la flexibilidad horaria” (“without prejudice to flexible working hours”). In the case of the Madrid property management firm with no clock-in system, the Madrid TSJ rejected that argument and ordered the company to pay €41,192 in overtime.

If you run stores and a supervisor still does not clock in, this is what we would look at first:

• Make sure everyone who works in the store clocks in, supervisors and store managers included.
• Take the rota for any given week and check whether it shows the time each person actually started and finished, or only the hours they were assigned.
• Records must be kept for four years, and staff, their representatives and the Inspectorate can ask to see them.

Failing to record working time is a serious infringement, with fines from €751 to €7,500, as we set out in our guide to penalties for not keeping working time records. If you are wondering whether an Excel sheet is enough, we compare the two in Excel vs digital software for working time records. Daily recording has been mandatory since 2019, and the new Royal Decree on digital time recording is still going through the approval process.

How Cleverfy solves it

Cleverfy is time tracking and working time recording software for SMEs and self-employed professionals. In a single store or a chain, it allows the whole team, managers included, to have their actual working hours recorded:

• PIN clock-in on a shared tablet in every store, plus a mobile app for supervisors and roaming staff who do not stay at a single site.
• Flexible hours with real clock-ins. Each person clocks in and out, and the system compares the planned rota with the hours actually worked, the information the DÓNDE was missing.
• Automatic overtime calculation and alerts for the legal limit of 80 hours a year.
• Missed clock-in reminders for the employee and alerts for the manager, so no days are left blank.
• A history of every correction, showing who requested it, who approved it and why.
• Per-store and consolidated reports, ready to show the Labour Inspectorate.

If you manage stores, take a look at our time tracking software for retail, try it free for 14 days or book a demo. Our plans are on the pricing page.

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This article is general information about a specific court ruling and does not constitute legal advice. The Labour Inspectorate’s fine is under appeal and is not final, and the TSJ judgment can be challenged before the Supreme Court through an appeal for the unification of doctrine. For specific situations, consult an employment lawyer.

Image: Mercadona supermarket on Avenida de Orihuela, Alicante. Photo by Varondán, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped image.

Sources:

• STSJ CV 3722/2026, of 8 September (TSJ of the Valencian Community, Social Chamber, appeal 609/2026), CENDOJ
• Workers’ Statute, arts. 34.9 and 50
• LISOS (Royal Legislative Decree 5/2000), art. 7.5