The Ministry of Justice has taken the first step this afternoon to start a negotiation with judicial officials, who have been mobilizing since April and have been on an indefinite strike since May 22 to demand wage and labor improvements. The department headed 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, as reported by worker representatives. The call came after, in the morning, the officials announced a tightening of their pressure measures directed at the Minister of Justice, whom they accuse of keeping an “indolent silence” in the face of her protest.
The officials presented a letter to the Ministry on Thursday in which they demanded that the strike committee be called “immediately” to find a way out of the conflict. And they warned: if the Government does not respond to their claim, they would file a complaint with the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office 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 in breach of its duty under article 8.2 of the labor relations decree (commonly known as the “1977 strike decree”) 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,” the workers assured in a joint note from the four unions promoting the protest (CSIF, STAJ, CC OO and UGT).
Justice officials, a group made up of 45,000 people, depend organically on the central government, although the majority 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 responsibility of the ministry headed by Pilar Llop: the general complement of the position (a basic remuneration that is set by the General State Budget and that is linked to the functions carried out by the official) and the Organizational Efficiency Law that the Government was processing and that has remained in the air with the dissolution of the Cortes after the call for elections for July 23. The unions estimate the follow-up of the strike at more than 80%, while the Justice data (only on the workers of the central bodies and the communities without the powers transferred) place the follow-up this Thursday at 24.82% of Template.
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 put an end to two months of indefinite strike for part of that body. That pact is in the background of the strike now started by judicial officials. But between one conflict and another, the threat of a strike by judges and prosecutors slipped in and the Government focused on this matter to avoid the protest of a state power in the middle of the electoral campaign. In addition, the review of the salaries of judges and prosecutors is regulated by law and has not been complied with 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 announcing that it would let the May 28 elections pass and, later, the hasty end of the legislature again left the talks with officials on the air. “Every day that passes without a meeting being called, the zero interest of this ministry in sinking justice 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”, denounced the unions in the note released this Thursday.
In addition to the threat of denouncing the minister and her Secretary of State, the unions have announced other measures with which they intend to increase pressure on the Executive. They are going to write a letter to the Secretary General of Justice, to the Government secretaries 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 to that no action that has to be signed by the LAJ be carried out without their presence [los letrados de la Administración de Justicia]”. 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. “In case of becoming aware of any pressure on this issue, it will be reported to the corresponding instance,” they say.
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