Claim “right to strike” has been compromised by requirement for minimum services
Schools up and down the country will be closed tomorrow due to a strike by non-teaching staff of FNSTFPS – the national federation of public and social sector workers – who will also be staging a protest in Lisbon in front of the education ministry at 3pm.
The original idea for the strike, announced last week, was to “demand the creation of specific careers for educational assistants” as well as improvements to varous working conditions. Since then however, it has morphed into a strike to support teachers’ ‘right to strike’ in the face of the judicial ruling for minimum services.
Talking to Lusa, FNSTFPS’ Artur Sequeira explained “the right to strike and demonstrate is being called into question”, given that the question of minimum services was not even discussed in relation to the FNSTFPS strike notice.
This is almost certainly because FNSTFPS has not been striking repeatedly since December.
But in Sequeira’s mindset: “They (the government) are using the minimum services decided in the arbitration court for the S.T.O.P (syndicate for all workers in education) strike notice and are applying it to all workers…”
Artur Sequeira adds that the federation “does not align itself with the S.T.O.P strikes (sic)”, which it considers to be “savage”.
But the upshot of tomorrow’s strike is that teachers will get their wish: parents won’t be able to take children to school, because all the schools will be shut due to FNSTFPS’ strike.
