While mainland counterparts continue to be told ‘there’s no money for you…’
The iniquities at play in the teaching profession are now easy to see: in Madeira, the deal struck is seeing teachers receive €600 in pay increases (for money previously ‘frozen’ during financial crises); on the mainland, the mantra remains: “We don’t have the money to reinstate your frozen years…”
Says SIC, “in Madeira no-one has any doubts that (theirs) is the solution that should apply to the whole country”.
Madeira’s solution is a phased reinstatement of frozen time / pay and conditions until 2025. Each year since 2019 has been taken as the equivalent of three, to help ‘frozen service’ be recovered. Already teachers pay packets are reaping the benefits. “In liquid terms, it is almost already another €600 more per month”, physical education teacher Carlos Sousa has told the station.
Colleague Duarte Freitas says: “In 2024, if everything goes as expected, I will reach the 7th level and that could mean a difference in terms of salary of €700…”
Both professionals explain that the system has been engineered so that by the time they retire, they will have reached the 10th level in their profession that pays out the best pension.
But, for political reasons, this form of recovering years in which they were left in limbo (through no fault of their own) is being denied the teachers of the mainland, which is why the last three academic periods were so pitted by industrial action – and why this coming scholastic year shows every indication of seeing exactly the same level of strikes, industrial action and bitterness.
Source material: SIC
