2023-04-20 22:14:45
After more than five hours of meeting, the Ministry of Justice and the civil servant unions have not reached an agreement to put an end to the strikes called by CSIF, STAJ, Comisiones Obreras and UGT to demand an improvement in their wages in line with of the one approved by the department directed by Pilar Llop for judicial lawyers, who after two months of strike achieved a monthly increase of 430 euros on average.
The partial stoppages (of three hours a day) that began last Monday will therefore continue indefinitely while waiting for Justice to give in and agree to approve a salary increase for the 45,000 civil servants in the sector.
The unions describe this first contact as «disappointing», but the two parties will sit down again on Monday in search of an agreement. According to union sources, Justice did not bring “any economic proposal” to the meeting, so the strike committee has not called off the mobilizations despite the fact that the positions of one and the other “are still very far apart”.
The strikers demand the “paralysis and negotiation” of the Organic Law on Organizational Efficiency of the Public Justice Service (LEOE), a matter in which they admit “timid advances”, and the “recognition and clarification of the functions that are effectively carried out by officials” as well as their “adequate remuneration”.
For now, the effects of this measure of pressure have already led to the paralysis of 700,000 judicial proceedings and the suspension of around 100,000 trials, according to data from the convening unions, including the one held at the National Court against the “plot Gürtel» for the award of a contract for the stand of the Valencian Community in Fitur in 2009, which has seated the former president of the Generalitat Francisco Camps on the bench.
24 hour strike
The officials staged a day of general strike last Wednesday, with a demonstration included in Madrid, after which the unions that promote the strikes made it clear that the pressure must be “maintained.” And it is that CSIF complained that from the department directed by Pilar Llop they had not been transferred a specific proposal in relation to their demands. And until it arrives, they pointed out, “we will continue in the protest and the partial strikes will continue indefinitely.”
From the Ministry they insist that they will maintain their desire for dialogue and recall that in this same legislature, already with Llop at the helm, “an important agreement was reached” to equate the salary of civil servants from those autonomous communities without supervisory powers to the national average. Justice transferred, which meant a disbursement estimated at almost 40 million euros.
But beyond the outcome of this labor conflict, in the ministry they are aware that behind the officials they will have to attend to the salary claims of judges and prosecutors.
Llop’s ministry will sit down with the judicial representatives at the Remuneration Table (which is convened periodically to review the salaries of magistrates) on May 3. But the previous meetings do not invite optimism. On March 31, the four judicial associations – the Professional Association of the Magistracy (APM), the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association, Judges for Democracy (JJpD) and the Independent Judicial Forum – urged Justice to respond to their compensation claims before May 30. Otherwise, they warned, they would launch a “calendar of pressure measures.”
The judges, on guard
On the 14th, two of these judicial groups received, in separate internal consultations, the support of their associates for a possible gown strike: 70.31 percent of the members of the majority APM endorsed the measure, while in Foro Independent Judicial Support for agreeing with the rest of the associations on “a strike calendar” stood at 75%.
With the municipal and regional elections and the beginning of the rotating presidency of the European Union just around the corner, it is not convenient for the Government of Pedro Sánchez to keep the front in Justice open.
May will therefore be a key month to calm down the spirits and try to solve the salary claims that the Lawyers of the Administration of Justice (LAJ) initiated last January. A strike that forced the suspension of 400,000 trials and paralyzed nearly half a million lawsuits.
For now, the partial strikes have been supported, according to the unions, by more than 80 percent of the officials, far from the figures recognized by Justice, less than 20 percent except on the day of the general strike on Wednesday, when it placed this follow-up in 28.39%.
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