2023-06-09 17:42:05
The judicial unions have fulfilled their threat and, this Friday, they have presented a brief to the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office in which they ask that the Minister and the Secretary of State for Justice, Pilar Llop and Tontxu Rodríguez, be investigated for not keeping the the conflict with the workers, who have been on an indefinite strike since May 22. According to the unions (CSIF, STAJ, CC OO and UGT), the ministry is breaching its duty established in article 8.2 of the labor relations decree (commonly known as the “1977 strike decree”) to convene the strike committee during the duration of the protest. “If the negotiation is not carried out, it is impossible for the strike to be called off, unless it is intended with this failure to call meetings that the remuneration discounts made for so many days of strike can dissuade workers from continuing the strike,” they point out in their written.
The conflict between the officials of the Administration of Justice and the Government has been entrenched since last April, when the workers began to mobilize to demand a salary increase of between 350 and 450 euros per month, in line with the agreement reached between the Executive Central and the lawyers of the Administration of Justice (former court clerks) who put an end to two months of indefinite strike by that body.
Both parties finally met last Monday, but the meeting ended without an agreement and, since then, five members of the strike committee have remained locked up until this Friday at the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice waiting for negotiations to resume. The unions have ended their confinement at five in the afternoon after denouncing that the ministry did not allow food to be delivered to them and after one of them had to be treated by the Madrid Emergency Medical Service (SUMMA) for being indisposed. The end of the confinement, warn the unions, does not mean the end of the protest since the indefinite strike continues.
Justice sources point out that the ministry has offered several options this week to the locked-up workers, an extreme that they deny. The complaint has caught Llop in Luxembourg, in the Council of Ministers of Justice of the EU, where they discussed, among other things, against violence against women. Article 8.2 of the strike decree establishes: “From the moment of notice and during the strike, the strike committee and the employer (…) must negotiate to reach an agreement” and the workers defend that they have fulfilled their part “assisting to the meetings that have been called. “Not so the Ministry of Justice and its top managers,” say the workers, who accuse the minister and the Secretary of State of avoiding the meetings from April 24 to June 6 and of ending the negotiations as of of that day, despite the fact that the strike continues and no agreement has been reached to call it off. “The breach of their obligation to negotiate by the Ministry of Justice and its highest officials is an act contrary to the law and carried out with the knowledge of its illegality,” the workers say in the letter they have submitted to the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office.
The spokesman for the strike committee, the general secretary of the CCOO Justice Administration Sector, Luis Calero, one of those locked up, told EFE this Friday that after the third night inside the ministry, where they have been since Tuesday, The situation has worsened but they intend to continue until someone in charge of the Government agrees to negotiate with them. “We trust that the Secretary of State for Justice, Tontxu Rodríguez, the Minister or the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will reconsider the situation, since we ask at least to negotiate some improvements in pay and working conditions, as has been done with other groups. ”, Calero said in reference to the agreements with judges, prosecutors and lawyers of the Administration of Justice.
Justice sources see in the confinement of officials in the ministerial headquarters a certain electoral component due to the proximity of the general elections on July 23. Regarding the strike and the negotiations demanded by the unions, these sources affirm that the leadership of the ministry is willing to “talk”, but after the July elections. “Now it is impossible to reach an economic agreement,” they say. For now, these sources add, only a “commitment for the future is reached, so that in the next legislature they can discuss or negotiate on these terms.” This is the proposal that the Government made to the unions on Monday, but that they rejected.
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Justice admits that the conflict with Justice has festered between two elections. The next generals and the previous ones, the municipal and regional ones on May 28. The ministry affirms that with 12 communities with transferred Justice powers, it was at least necessary to “deal with” the issue with the regional Executives. “It is the regional governments that pay the salaries of the civil servants. Even a generic plugin. And in a position in which it is not yet known if the governments are going to be the same, you cannot link them, regardless of the color they are ”, affirm the same sources. “It was not the most opportune moment to open a debate of this depth, because the strike was also going to be introduced as one more element of the regional campaign,” they add regarding the May elections. Justice waited for the regional governments to be configured to sit down to talk, but the advance of the generals has complicated the process. “The unions have decided to do it now, with the damage that this causes to the Administration of Justice and to the citizens, and in a situation in which they know that we cannot make decisions about this.”
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