The Judicial Employees Union (SFJ) has scheduled a total strike for July 14, which coincides with the last day of the atypical strike that has been going on since the end of May.
According to the SFJ’s strike notice, to which Lusa had access today, the strike will “take place on July 14, 2023, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., in all organizational units / courts, for all judicial employees working in the courts and services of the Public Ministry, as well as other departments and services of the Portuguese State.
At stake for the union is “the current socio-professional situation and the lack of fulfillment of commitments made and the deliberations of the Assembly of the Republic,” stressing that there will be no indication of minimum services, because it is considered that this strike does not conflict with the rights, freedoms and guarantees of citizens.
“Striking workers cannot be replaced by non-striking workers who are not normally assigned to the materially competent service,” reads the notice addressed to Prime Minister António Costa, to the Minister of the Presidency, Mariana Vieira da Silva, and to the Minister of Justice, Catarina Sarmento e Castro.
The SFJ immediately demands the opening of a procedure for access to all professional categories (assistant clerk, assistant justice technician, law clerk, principal justice technician and justice secretary), as well as the inclusion in the salary of the supplement for procedural recovery paid at 14 months and retroactive to January 2021.
On the other hand, it points out to collective bargaining the issues of filling vacant positions in the judicial officers’ career through multi-annual competition, a special retirement and access to the pre-retirement regime for judicial officers, the revision of the salary scale and, finally, the revision of the professional status of the career.
The July 14 date corresponds to the last day of work in the courts before the judicial vacation, which runs from July 15 to August 31.
The total strike of judicial employees now announced for the last day before the vacations in the courts may jeopardize hundreds of trials and proceedings, including the reading of the decision of the BES case, which is scheduled for 2:00 pm, in the Monsanto court in Lisbon.
The atypical strike currently underway since May 29 takes place “in a creative format”, which is not coincident in districts, schedules or jurisdictions, i.e., the strike can take place in one way and schedule in a judicial court and in a different way in the public prosecution services, or within the same district it can take place differently in the various courts that compose it.
