Strike timed to fall on last Friday before elections
In another public sector strike ensuring schools are closed again on a Friday, Portugal’s National Union of Public Service and Entity Workers (STTS) is focussing on the last Friday before the May 18 elections, citing what it calls a deterioration of working conditions and a lack of appreciation for its members.
In a statement released last night, the union said that state workers are “fed up with low salaries, the devaluation of careers, empty promises and a management that doesn’t recognise the importance of public services for society.”
The union also presented a list of demands, in various sectors, starting with the “creation of a statute for educational workers, guaranteeing decent conditions and professional stability” and “an end to the unilateral transfer of educational workers to partner organisations.”
Other demands include the reinstatement of the career of single public transport agent, the implementation of the meal card in public administration, with a daily tax-free value of €10.20, and the fulfilment and revision of collective bargaining agreements and company agreements, guaranteeing acquired rights.
The list of demands also includes a review of the SIADAP assessment system, “guaranteeing the maintenance of acquired points and the replacement of points unfairly withdrawn,” as well as their regularisation “for the 2019/2020 and 2021/2022 periods.”
The demands put forward by the union also include the “application of the risk allowance in the career of health and nursing auxiliary technician, revision of collective agreements following the implementation of the career of health auxiliary technician (and the) urgent hiring of staff, avoiding excessive shifts of up to 17 hours, which jeopardise the health of workers and the quality of the services provided.”
Operational assistants, technical assistants and auxiliary health technicians “are at the centre of the functioning of public administration,” the union stresses in the statement. “They ensure the day-to-day running of essential services for the population. However, they face derisory salaries, gruelling working hours and a lack of professional progression.
“Currently, around 749,000 public administration workers face insufficient salary conditions, with many of them on the minimum wage, set at €878.41 for 2025,” it goes on. “This reality reflects the lack of appreciation for the professionals who guarantee the functioning of essential public services.
“Workers on the lower rungs of the career ladder demand that the government, this one and all those to come, guide their actions by moral and ethical values, guaranteeing fairness in the treatment of the lower rungs of the career ladder compared to the rest of the civil service,” concludes the statement, emphasising that it wants “concrete and immediate answers from the government”, even though the country is at a juncture where no government can give such answers until a new administration is formed, and then sworn in.
In other words, this strike, like that of the rail unions, has questionable timing. ND
Source: Lusa
