Speaking to the Lusa agency, the coordinator of the Commission for the Installation of the Union of Judicial Employees of the Supreme Court, Domingos Feca, said that, at the beginning of the concentration of the employees, there was an attempt to impede, with the presence of police, a situation that was later overcome. .
According to Domingos Feca, on Friday, the officials received authorization, by letter from the president of the court, to be present at that location.
The unionist said that today the services are already paralyzed "and the strike declaration is beginning to be effective", with adhesion levels around 85 percent.
"From today, for two weeks, until April 1, we are waiting that in this period the management and other institutions that have responsibilities in solving our problem can present some safe proposal, which can move us from what has been programmed, which is the strike", he said.
According to the unionist, this is the third strike that has taken place (the first took place in 2017 and the second in 2020), "always with the same reasons".
Domingos Feca stressed that the demand is that employees have salaries equal to those of the Constitutional, Accounting and Supreme Military Courts, whose difference compared to the Supreme Court "is abysmal".
"What we want here is just this, we are not claiming privileges, we are not claiming that we are better paid than others, we are just claiming that we have salaries equal to the salaries practiced in other higher courts", he stressed.
As an example, the trade unionist stressed that a driver from the Constitutional Court earns up to 300 thousand kwanzas when the driver from the Supreme Court receives, even with a temporary supplement, 117 thousand kwanzas.
"The advisor to the Constitutional Court has 1.2 million kwanzas and the Supreme Court has a maximum of 500 thousand kwanzas, so the difference is abysmal", he underlined.
According to the trade unionist, on the part of the employer, the response to the resolution of complaints is generally sent to Organs executive bodies of the State, namely the Ministry of Finance.
"By the employer, there has been nothing concrete, there have been no solutions, some of the achievements that we are having are really the result of the strike and insistence, because if we were to wait for the employer, the answer is always sent to the bodies that have ownership in responsibility in resolving this situation", he said.
In the last strike, in 2020, according to Domingos Feca, during the negotiation phase, a salary supplement was given, which for some was up to 120 thousand kwanzas for some, "this caused the strike to be suspended with the purpose and condition that, in January of 2022, to make the long-awaited equivalence".
"But unfortunately, once again, in January, the promises were not fulfilled, the agreements failed, so, unfortunately, we are again in this fight to see the equality happen and we ended up resorting to the strike and it is nothing that happy, but it's the last way", he pointed out.
With about 200 permanent employees, the strike, with an adhesion of about 85 percent, will safeguard minimum services, namely surveillance, reception of files, mainly the processing of cases with defendants who need to be released, informed Domingos Feca.
"A stoppage always has consequences, the institution doesn't work, there will be no trials and if there are no trials we can already see the harm that this is for the judicial system itself. Really this was an avoidable evil and if we are correcting what is evil, here is an evil to be corrected: the equation needs to be resolved, so that what is wrong would be corrected", he lamented.
