Head of State describes government’s tweaks as “opening door on new negotiations”
As the dust settles on President Marcelo’s dramatic veto of the government’s diploma for career progressions for teachers, it appears it meant very little.
Within hours of the veto, the government had ‘tweaked the text’ and sent it back.
On Sunday, President Marcelo revealed he was happy with the tweaks and would “probably” promulgate the law which, in the final analysis, simply leaves a ‘very narrow door open’ to the prospect of negotiations, at some time in the future, over the ‘unfreezing’ of time taken from the profession in the name of austerity.
Said television commentator Luís Marques Mendes in his habitual slot last night, “in practice, nothing changes”.
Indeed, he believes the whole exercise boiled down to a “lost opportunity” for meaningful negotiations to reopen with teachers.
Thus, Marcelo may well be satisfied with the ‘narrow opening of a door for reconsideration of time taken from teachers, some day in the future’, but it remains to be seen if teachers will be; and whether this toing and froing of minutiae within a paragraph – returning to almost exactly the same place – will be enough to save schools from another year in which teachers stage furious strikes and protests.
According to Público, the syndicates that have commented have said they feel deceived, and that the ‘result’ that has satisfied the country’s head of State “tastes of nothing” to them.
UPDATE: FENPROF teachers union confirms protests by teachers will begin with the start of the new academic year in September.
