Justice officials on strike are gathering this Thursday in front of the Ministry of Justice to demand salary and labor improvements. ZIPI ARAGON ZIPI (EFE)
The Ministry of Justice has taken this afternoon the first step to start a negotiation with judicial officials, who have been mobilizing since April and have been on indefinite strike since May 22 to demand salary and labor improvements. The department led by Pilar Llop has convened the strike committee on June 6 for what will be the first meeting between the two parties since the officials began their protest, according to workers' representatives. The call has occurred after that, in the morning, the officials announced a hardening of their pressure measures directed at the Minister of Justice, whom they accuse of keeping an "indolent silence" in the face of their protest.
The officials presented a letter to the Ministry on Thursday in which they demanded that the strike committee be convened "immediately" to seek a solution to the conflict. And they warned: if the Government does not address their claim, they would file a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court against Llop and the Secretary of State for Justice, Tontxu Rodríguez, for violation of the fundamental right to freedom of association. According to the workers' representatives, the ministry is failing in its duty under section 8.2 of the Labour Relations Decree (commonly known as the "Strike Decree 1977") to convene the strike committee for the duration of the protest." We believe that the anti-union attitude of these political leaders borders on prevarication," said the workers in a joint note from the four unions promoting the protest (CSIF, STAJ, CC OO and UGT).
Justice officials, a group of 45,000 people, depend organically on the central government, although most of the autonomous communities have transferred the management of justice (all except Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Extremadura, Murcia, the Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla). However, the unions have centralized their claim on two issues that are the direct competence of the ministry directed by Pilar Llop: the general complement of the post (a basic remuneration that is set by the General State Budgets and that is linked to the functions performed by the official) and the Law of Organizational Efficiency that the Government processed and that has remained in the air with the dissolution of the Courts after the call for elections for July 23. The unions figure in more than 80% the follow-up of the strike, while the data of Justice (only on the workers of the central organs and of the communities without the transferred competences) place the follow-up this Thursday in 24.82% of the workforce.
The unions demand a salary increase of between 350 and 450 euros per month, in line with the agreement reached between the central executive and the lawyers of the Administration of Justice (the former judicial secretaries) that ended two months of indefinite strike by that body. That pact is in the background of the strike now initiated by judicial officials. But between one conflict and another, the threat of a strike by judges and prosecutors crept in and the government focused on this issue to avoid the protest of a state power in the middle of the electoral campaign. In addition, the review of salaries of judges and prosecutors is regulated by law and has been breached for 20 years.
But the victims of that negotiation, which ended with an agreement, have been the officials. Justice postponed the contacts until the other conflict was resolved, later announced that it would let the May 28 elections pass and, later, the precipitous end of the legislature again left the talks with the officials in the air. "Every day that passes without a meeting is evident, it is clear the zero interest of this ministry for a justice that sinks and its classism and rancid corporatism that leads it to deny dialogue and negotiation to 45,000 public employees while it does so with the judicial elite," the unions denounced in the note released on Thursday.
In addition to the threat of denunciation against the minister and her secretary of state, the unions have announced other measures with which they intend to increase the pressure on the Executive. They will send a letter to the Secretary General of Justice, the secretaries of Government and coordinating secretaries "warning that no pressure will be accepted for an official to perform functions that are not included in the law as long as they are not adequately remunerated and so that no action that has to be signed by the LAJ [the lawyers of the Administration of Justice] is carried out without their presence." This, the assumption of tasks that do not correspond to them, but to the lawyers, is one of the arguments of the officials to demand a salary increase. "If we become aware of any pressure on this issue, it will be reported to the corresponding instance," they say.
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