Madrid
19/06/2023 a las 07:07
CEST
The unions regret the lack of willingness of Justice to raise their salaries despite having accepted with judges, prosecutors or LAJ. The protest continues and hinders judicial activity throughout Spain
Although the current government hardly any room for maneuver -there are only a few weeks left for the next general elections- Justice officials have maintained since last May 17 a indefinite strike -which was preceded by partial strikes since the end of March- in demand for a salary increase of up to 430 euros per month. Along the way, millions of judicial actions at the expense of being able to carry out and thousands of suspended trials, which increases the endemic saturation of the judicial bodies.
In essence, legal aid processors and officials -a group that brings together 45,000 employees in all the country-, they demand the same treatment that the department of Minister Pilar Llop has granted in recent months both to the lawyers of the administration of justice (LAJ) -a superior body formerly known as judicial secretaries- as well as to judges and prosecutors, with whom it has reached agreements to increase your salary.
The conflict has escalated in recent days, including up to three meetings between both parties that they have ended in nothing -according to the officials because no offer was made to them- a four-day confinement of the members of the strike committee with a complaint including that they were denied access to food, a complaint against the minister before the Supreme Court and daily rallies, both before the Ministry and before the national headquarters of the PSOE in Madrid.
“They force us to go to the mountains”
JAvier Jordán, member of the CSIF strike committee, which is the majority union in the sector, summarizes the current situation to EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA: “The situation is seriously damaging the Justice service, the bar associations themselves say so, and We are very sorry, but I explain it as being in a town that has been razed, and force us to go to the mountains”.
Last Tuesday, the convening unions -CSIF, CCOO, UGT and STAJ– made a consultation among its affiliateswho had been dragging a strike for weeks that will reduce their salaries this month, and the majority response was to continue with the protests.
As for monitoring, and as in the case of all labor conflicts, the data differs between conveners and employer‘: the unions assure that the support is almost total while the Ministry of Justice spoke on Friday of a percentage of just 23.77 percent.
He trick can be found in the fact that the central Administration only refers to the so-called territory Ministry -by the Autonomous Communities of Extremadura, Murcia, the Balearic Islands, Castilla-León, Castilla-La Mancha, the autonomous cities of Melilla and Ceuta and those assigned to the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and the National Court-, while official data is unknown of the rest, which depends on the autonomous communities with transferred powers in Justice.
The convening unions submitted the decision to go ahead to workers’ assemblies earlier this week, and the response was positive.
Since the last meeting, the two parties they lock themselves in their respective positions. The strike committee insisted on demanding a salary increase of up to 430 euros per month, while the Ministry insisted on offering only its commitment to continue negotiating after the general elections on July 23.
“We continue to wait” points out Jordán, who considers that despite the electoral advance there is no legal impediment any for the Government to offer them an increase, at least until it is officially in office as of next July and until the next Executive is constituted.
“And capacity has”he concludes, alluding to the commitment that on May 16 ended with the threat of strikes in another sector of the Administration, that of the workers in the State Social Security Agencyafter Minister José Luis Escrivá promised to increase the workforce and adopt measures to encourage the performance of these officials.