Caretaker government inflames issues further by increasing firefighters’ supplements
A new ‘mass protest’ of PSP and GNR police is expected to gather in central Lisbon today as the caretaker government has shown its ‘mantra’ of having its hands tied with regard to increasing pay supplements, is not exactly true.
According to tabloid Correio da Manhã this morning, the ministry in charge of police/ firefighters and the country’s overall ‘interior administration’ has just agreed to increasing amounts to be received by firefighters.
This will have hardened police determination to continue holding out for what in the final analysis everyone, including the country’s president, agrees is only fair.
As Lusa reports, “thousands of PSP and GNR officers are expected to gather in Lisbon’s Terreiro do Paço today to protest for better pay, demanding a supplement identical to the one given to the Judicial Police”.
The gathering will take place from 5.30pm. It has been organised by the platform that brings together the various police unions and associations, and will, for the first time, be held right outside the gates of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MAI), whose minister has suggested ‘police fury’ has been fanned by “extremist attitudes” embedded within the two forces.
Police, of course, say otherwise – and have been holding protests and demonstrations since January, throughout the country and in the regional archipelagos.
Although the government’s decision to increase firefighters’ pay supplements illustrates that it could conceivably move positively on police demands ahead of the elections in three weeks time, the platform organising protests accepts that this is unlikely. Nonetheless, the mission is to keep the iniquities at play ‘firmly in the public eye’, so that the next government – whichever political colour it turns out to be – acts very quickly after taking office.
The platform’s spokesman, Bruno Pereira, says a new meeting to discuss the situation has been called for March 2.
Lusa recalls how most of the protests this far “have been organised via social networks, namely WhatsApp and Telegram, and the inorganic movement ‘Movimento INOP’ has emerged, which has no involvement from the unions, despite the existence of a platform created to demand a review of pay supplements in the security forces.
“Despite not being seen as a form of protest, several PSP and GNR agents have taken sick leave (since the protests began) which has led to the cancellation of football matches in the I and II leagues and the Minister of Internal Affairs ordering the opening of an urgent investigation by IGAI, the General Inspectorate of Internal Affairs”.
It has been suggested that police could be in a position to put the March 10 elections ‘at risk’. But this has since been pushed into the background, after police union SINAPOL accused the government of trying to make political capital out of a passing remark.
