Judicial officials of the Angolan Supreme Court regret that a week after resuming work, after 15 days of stoppage, they do not have any response from the employer to their claims, a trade union source told Lusa today.
According to Domingos Feca, the coordinator of the commission to install the Judicial Employees Union of the Supreme Court of Angola, the strike, which has been suspended, will resume if the demand for equal pay with colleagues from higher courts is not met.
Domingos Feca said that a meeting with the president of the Supreme Court, Joel Leonardo, was scheduled for today, but it was postponed, and should take place next week.
“We don’t know what comes of it, we are waiting if we will possibly be notified and we are waiting, following our normal schedule”, he said.
The trade unionist stressed that this meeting will make the decision whether to resume the second phase of the strike or not.
“We are finishing the first week of the resumption of work, Monday will be the last, as scheduled, if there is nothing we will stop again for another 15 days. As long as there is nothing concrete, the rhythm will be this, 15 days of work, 15 days of stoppage”, he stressed.
According to the coordinator of the commission to install the Union of Judicial Employees of the Supreme Court, during the two weeks of stoppage no trials were held, which caused a congestion of cases.
“At this point there is an accumulation of work, we are giving vent to what is really convenient, in order to also reduce some congestion, pressure of the processes, but if nothing is resolved, we will again have this difficulty that the stoppage causes”, he stressed.
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”, that is, a request for equal pay with employees of the Constitutional, Accounting and Supreme Military Courts, whose difference from those of the Supreme “is abysmal”.
With about 200 effective employees, the strike safeguards minimum services, namely surveillance, reception of files, mainly the processing of cases with defendants who need to be released.
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