Published On: Tue, Nov 13th, 2012

No pay for striking legal workers

Colombia’s legal workers, still on strike in defiance of the government/union agreement to get the country’s courts back up and running, look to set to lose out on their November pay packet Colombia Politics can reveal.

Negotiations between the Santos administration and Asonal finished last Wednesday with both parties having thrashed out an accord which the government hoped would put an end a month of direct action.

But Asonal union members remain divided over whether to accept the terms of last week’s settlement and while 80% of courts are now functioning as normal, over half on those on the picket line did not return to work on Thursday. Workers in Bogota, Bucaramanga, Cali, Cucuta and Popayan are still on strike, and worse still, Bogota’s courts remain shut up, closed to business.

The decision on whether to dock workers´ pay, as punishment for this non-compliance, will be taken next week by the Supreme Court and the Judicial Administration.

Why are the workers on strike? In 1992 a law was passed by the Colombian government ordering a levelling of pay between regional and high court judges. The law is yet to be implemented over twenty years later.

In 2008 the judicial sector went on strike for 6 weeks over the same matter, but this time over 60,000 workers have downed tools resulting in a backlog of over 100,000 cases.

The agreement led to the government committing, over the next five years, US$671m towards achieving this pay equalization.

But the Union is demanding US$819m, and over three years.

Colombian Justice Minister, Ruth Stella Correa, has gone on the offensive claiming the negotiations were “impossible to amend”. And President Santos pleaded on Saturday for dissident strikers to “come to their senses”, claiming the agreement reached was “very good” and that the continuation of the strike “violates the rights of fellow Colombians”.

Nevertheless, a rebel bloc inside Asonal, led by Nelson Cantillo, is digging in its heels, and refusing to accept the deal.

As the case load grows and Colombia´s creeking judiciary limps on, President Santos will look for a swift solution to a problem which threatens to erode further the aready fragile trust Colombians have in their nation´s justice system.

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