The unity of action of the seven associations of judges and prosecutors present at the remuneration table with the ministries of Justice and Finance hangs by a thread. Over the last few hours, three different positions have been forged on the economic claims that they are demanding for a salary increase, although at the meeting scheduled for this Wednesday starting at 4:00 p.m. they will try to agree on an amount so as not to weaken their negotiating position. according to sources familiar with this debate.
Initially, the professional groups must respond in this Wednesday’s call to the offer of 46 million euros made last Monday by senior ministerial officials, 1.5 million more than the first proposal. And it is precisely this figure that has caused the differences between the associations, which had initially agreed to claim a total amount of 62 million in salary improvements. A sum that would mean an average increase for the 5,600 judges and 2,700 active prosecutors of about 600 euros gross per month compared to the range managed by Justice and the Treasury: ranging from 350 to 490 euros, depending on the amount of the payroll.
However, the subsequent meeting held on Monday by the groups of judges and prosecutors after learning of the new government offer caused the first differences. On the one hand, the Professional Association of the Magistracy (APM), the majority in the race – it has 1,355 associates, according to data from the CGPJ – and with a conservative sensibility, ruled out the 46 million and announced to its colleagues that it raised its request to 74 million. .
A figure that the sources consulted consider “unassumable” and that makes clear their little interest in reaching an agreement to continue with their initial objective: to maintain the indefinite strike called from May 16, coinciding with the election campaign municipal and autonomous communities on May 28.
“Last chance”
Given this rupture of the APM, Judges for Democracy -progressive in nature and third in number of representatives in the judicial career (436 associates)- dropped the consensual petition of 62 million to keep the latest proposal of Justice and Treasury and not second, as expected, definitely the strike.
And in the middle were the other two judicial groups, the Francisco de Vitoria Association (second in representation with 859 members) and the Independent Judicial Forum (335 members), and the three groups of the prosecutorial career: the Association of Prosecutors, the Union Progresista de Fiscales and the Professional and Independent Association of Prosecutors, according to the same sources.
These disagreements caused by the request of the APM were debated this Tuesday by the representatives of all the groups, who considered the negotiating unit dead, although at the last minute they tried to correct this division.
In short, this Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. they will face each other again with Justice and the Treasury with little prospect of an agreement, since the Government is also aware of this situation before the final meeting. The strike is approaching and the unity of the associations is about to be blown up.
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