Strike has effectively given public sector workers five days off…
FESINAP, Portugal’s National Federation of Independent Public Administration Trade Unions, has called a national strike from midnight today until midnight on Friday, ensuring no further work will be done this week.
The reason is “to press for wage increases and the implementation of a meal subsidy of €9.60 per day”.
According to the strike notice (that seems to have come out of the blue), the strike will take place over three days from June 7-9, from midnight to midnight, and covers both workers with civil service status and those employed under common labour law.
In a statement, FESINAP has said that the strike is nationwide and covers “all public administration workers” – including workers from hospitals run as public business entities (EPEs).
“The government cannot continue to treat workers with ‘handouts’, when all careers need to be reviewed from top to bottom, starting with the indexation of salaries to the functions effectively carried out by workers and not by the category they hold,” says the union in its statement.
This is a week with both the prime minister and president of the country, extolling the virtues of cross-border cooperation ahead of the symbolic ‘commemorations’ on Saturday for Portugal Day – a date this year that will be marked by strife on many levels.
Source material: LUSA
