Campaign “dignity isn’t charity” wants agents much better paid and valued
ASPP/PSP, the association of PSP police syndicates, is holding a protest in front of Lisbon’s parliament today, to coincide with the meeting its leaders will be having early evening with minister of interior administration José Luís Carneiro.
Under the slogan “Dignity isn’t Charity”, the protest means to highlight what the union describes as its “opposition to the mixture between charity and professional dignity that the government seeks to impose”.
It is also designed to push for what police syndicates have been pushing for for years: investment in the PSP police service that gives value to its officers.
ASPP president Paulo Santos told Lusa that the PS executive is preparing “a packet of social measures, like accommodation and creche spaces for agents’ children”, but hasn’t addressed “issues of dignifying salaries, improving work conditions, or respect for the profession”.
These long-held demands cannot be fobbed off with what Santos refers to as “charity and social assistance”.
Today’s protest follows the presentation in parliament yesterday of the government’s State Budget for 2023 which has ‘delighted’ very few – and comes while the PSP is polling members to hear their opinions over further acts of protest.
Right now, the month of November is limbering up for the next point in the calendar where police discontent will come to the fore, in the term of a ‘national protest’. Police, by nature of their profession, are prohibited from taking strike action.
