In an almost festive tone, in which slogans such as "may the deputy minister give us our money" or "with this director things do not improve", alluding to the director of Relations with the Administration of Justice of the autonomous government, Carolina Déniz, about 40 officials dressed in t-shirts and caps, on which could be read "Justice is in struggle" and carrying a banner with the same vindictive phrase, occupied the doors of the courts for a little over an hour.
Officials from all over the archipelago have joined to ask that their salaries be equated with those of Justice officials from other Autonomous Communities, such as Galicia or the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, with the incorporation of the supplement known as "transitional", which includes compensation for arduousness and workload and amounts to 472 euros, of which Justice officials in the Canary Islands currently receive 208 euros.
Eugenio Fernández, worker of Court No. 3 of Arrecife and delegate of the Independent Trade Union Center of Officials (CSIF), considers it very difficult to reach an agreement with the Government of the Canary Islands, an institution that pays them since it assumed the competences in matters of Justice, although they continue to be workers of the national body of officials. "The Canarian Government refuses to give us that money that is ours, they have raised us 30 euros in each negotiation meeting" says Eugenio Fernández.
Last Friday the strike committee and the Government sat down to negotiate for the third time, but only obtained a new increase of 30 euros, something that officials are not willing to accept. According to the union delegate "we have reduced our claim that at first was 272 euros to equate ourselves with the rest of the autonomies, now we have reduced to 182 euros".
During the whole weekend, a group of officials have remained locked in the multi-purpose building of Arrecife 2. The CSIF delegate, states that the Government gave the order to cut off the electricity of the building and not to supply water and food in the early morning of Friday to Saturday to the union members locked up. In addition, Eugenio Fernádez considers that the Minister of Justice, José Miguel Ruano, "vilely deceived us last Friday", since he promised them an immediate negotiation that has not occurred "he told us so that we would not spoil the inauguration ceremony of the courts" adds Fernández.
The autonomous government has summoned the strike committee at 17:00 hours this Monday in Tenerife for a new negotiation, to which the strikers attend hopelessly. According to officials, in Arrecife the strike had, on its first day, a follow-up of 50%, of the 110 workers that are part of the court staff. They say they will be on strike as long as it takes.
