National
Agreement reached in the judiciary civil servants strike
By h.b.
Apr 1, 2008 - 8:06 AM

The strike by civil servants in the judiciary in several regions of Spain is over. Agreement was signed last night between the civil servants’ union and the Ministry for Justice to end the stoppage under which the workers will receive the 140 € a month pay rise granted in stages from now until April 2009.

The justice workers in some regions of the country were complaining that they were being paid less than their counterparts in other regions where responsibility for the judiciary had been devolved.

The workers will now have to approve the agreement in a referendum, and a new committee will be set up to overview the progress of the new agreement. The strike started on February 4 and has seen the delay of thousands of court cases in many regions of the country.

Before the agreement was reached, there were more protests in Murcia on Monday where striking officials set fire to photos of the Justice Minister, Mariano Fernández Bermejo, outside the Palace of Justice in Murcia City. They also burnt papers meant to symbolise the hundreds of thousands of court documents in the thousands of cases which have accumulated since the strike first began at the beginning of February.
Monday’s protest came after a workers assembly in the Murcia Palace of Justice, called by union leaders to inform the officials of the outcome of another negotiating meeting which took place in Madrid last Friday, where no agreement was reached. Another meeting was due to take place on Monday.