Nursing syndicates meet with government in last ditch attempt to avert national strike

Nurses are demanding pay increases in line with police/ armed forces

Two days from yet another ‘national strike’ by nurses, the government has agreed once more to ‘get around the table’ and see if demands can be satisfied.

The issue with this latest pay tussle is that incoming nurses have been offered a €52 pay increase, which “in addition to being insufficient, is seen as an insult to the professional class that plays a vital role in the SNS State health service”.

Union leaders have stressed that “in a context in which other professional classes are seeing increases of at least €300 in their salary conditions, nurses declare unequivocally that they will not accept increases of less than 35% of the entry level in the Nursing career for all categories”.

SNE, the National Nurses syndicate considers today’s meeting to be “a crucial and final opportunity to reaffirm the nurses’ position: we are not on sale.

“The expectation is clear: we will not accept that the government, the Minister of Health herself and the Boards of Directors of the ULS [Local Health Units], go ‘bathing’ (meaning on holiday through August) without explaining to the Portuguese people why they are leaving the SNS to agonise. 

“If other ministers have managed to reach a fair agreement (in their negotiations), it won’t be for lack of warning that we won’t be able to save the SNS and its pillar, the nurses”.

SNE is part of a whole trade union platform committed to this struggle, including Compromisso Pela Enfermagem (Commitment to Nursing), which also includes the Sindicato Independente de Todos os Enfermeiros Unidos (SITEU), the Sindicato do Enfermeiros (SE), the Sindicato Independente Profissionais Enfermagem (SIPENF) and the Sindicato Democrático dos Enfermeiros de Portugal (SINDEPOR).

Today’s meeting is scheduled for the afternoon. Health minister Ana Paula Martins and Secretary of State Cristina Vaz Tomé will be receiving the platform at 2pm, followed two hours later by a meeting with SEP (the Syndicate of Portuguese Nurses).

SEP announced the new strike (scheduled for Friday, August 2) two weeks ago, on a day that a meeting had been scheduled with the health ministry. As a result, the meeting was suspended. Today is the first step towards some kind of rapprochement.

Among SEP’s demands are a 35-hour working week. ND

Source material: LUSA