Two strikes are causing upheaval today.
The strike by CP railway personnel is expected to hit the Lisbon area hardest, whereas the walkout by teachers is just the first day of a week of protest due to end on Friday (Bank Holiday) with a major demonstration in Lisbon.
For now, the train strike – called by ticket sales staff and train crew – is due to run for 24-hours, though union bosses agree there could still be issues tomorrow.
Services affected include all high-speed intercity trains and ‘alfas’ as well as some regional and urban lines – thus the effects will extend across the country.
Train staff are up-in-arms over what they term the “absence of the hiring of workers, the absence of extra trains and a business model for collective contracts”.
Teachers meantime are still locked in their struggle for the salary increases that have been frozen for over nine years.
Today’s strike affects schools in the Lisbon, Setúbal and Santarém areas.
Tomorrow will be the turn of the south of the country – Portalegre, Évora, Beja and the Algarve – with Wednesday scheduled for protests in Coimbra, Aveiro, Leiria, Viseu, Guarda and Castelo Branco, and Thursday for Porto, Braga, Viana do Castelo, Vila Real and Bragança.
Strike action extends to the Azores, but not to Madeira where teachers have already persuaded the regional government that they deserve full compensation for the years without career progressions, or what they believe to be ‘proper compensation’ for an extremely important job.
This is the ‘eternal chestnut’ of António Costa’s government: the official mantra being that it cannot afford to compensate the thousands of teachers clamouring for money that has been denied them since the crisis years.
The government’s ‘best offer’ has been to reimburse teachers with just two years, nine months and 18 days of lost pay, whereas the federation of teachers (Fenprof) is demanding nine years, four months and two days.
Fenprof leader Mário Nogueira has already vowed to take this struggle to the European Courts if PS Socialists do not change their tune before the elections in 12 months time.
Thus, for now, strikes and anger continue.
