The LAJ attend their third meeting with Justice for the strike with a counter-offer: "It will not remain for us"

There are already some 223,000 views suspended and some 800 million euros blocked due to the indefinite break

MADRID, 27 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The members of the strike committee of the Lawyers of the Administration of Justice (LAJ) have gone this Monday to the Ministry directed by Pilar Llop with a counter offer to what is already their third meeting to put an end to the indefinite stoppage that began on the 24th of January in search of salary improvements.

"We come with a positive mentality, we believe that the conflict can be resolved with the good will of both parties. We already started Friday with a positive atmosphere and we believe that today it will continue exactly the same," said Carlos Artal, a member of the strike committee and one of the organizing associations, the UPSJ, in statements to the press upon arrival at the Ministry of Justice.

This Monday will be the third meeting held by both parties after a month of indefinite strike by the LAJ which, according to the calculations of the organizing associations, has meant the suspension of 223,000 views and the blocking of "almost 800 million euros "in court accounts.

Since the strike began, the LAJ and the Ministry have met twice. The first took place on Thursday, February 16. Then, they spent more than 15 hours at the Ministry's headquarters and ended without an agreement and with mutual reproaches between the parties for maintaining immovable positions.

The second meeting was last Friday, and although that time they also sat down and got up from the table without agreement -and within the hour and a half they had planned-, they managed to set the appointment for this Monday on the calendar to continue the negotiation.

As explained by the vice president of the Illustrious National College of Lawyers and member of the strike committee Luis Toribio, last Friday the Ministry sent them a document that, "in a preliminary assessment", the LAJ considered that it could "be used to start the negotiation ", although he stressed that the positions were "quite far apart".

Asked about said document, Artal indicated this Monday that they have studied it "in detail" and have a "counteroffer", although the strike committee has refused to reveal the content of both texts.

This Monday's meeting will be led by the Ministry by its Secretary of State for Justice, Tonxu Rodríguez, unlike the one held last Friday, led by the Secretary General, Manuel Olmedo.

Questioned about how the change of interlocutor could affect, Artal has assured that they do not care "the same", "as long as they have powers to negotiate" on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

"We come with a resilient mentality, we have 3,880 colleagues and their families behind us and in this case I believe that the public is waiting for this conflict to be resolved (...) It will not remain for us," he stated.

Llop, for her part, when asked last Friday about the demands of the strike committee, highlighted the measures adopted by the Ministry to improve the salary conditions of the LAJ.

He defined the LAJ as "essential workers", although he qualified that "justice is not paralyzed", because it currently "continues to function" with some specific stoppages due to the strike.

In addition, the minister recalled the request that she had already made on previous occasions to the Lawyers of the Administration of Justice: "Do not place yourself in maximalist positions."

The conflict has its origin in "the lack of salary adequacy to the greater functions and responsibilities attributed by Law 13/2009, discharged to judges, and increased in successive reforms", especially that of 2015, which -they denounce- - has caused an "unbearable imbalance".

The conveners point out as a "trigger" of the conflict the agreement that Justice signed in December 2021 with the unions of the general bodies "without properly developing the salary adjustment to the latest procedural reforms provided for in the second paragraph of Additional Provision 157 of the Law 11/2020 of the General State Budget for 2021".

In these four weeks, the convening associations --the Progressive Union of LAJ (UPSJ), the Independent Association of Lawyers (AinLAJ) and the Illustrious College of LAJ-- have registered a participation of between 85% and 73%, while that the Ministry has observed between 33.92% and 18.9% follow-up.