The new year starts in earnest with various strikes in ports, schools and companies. Civil servants and private workers are demanding salary increases and career improvement and will not budge after the sharp loss of purchasing power in 2022, caused by the sharp increase in inflation, which is expected to reach 8.1% according to the Bank of Portugal, and which has had an impact on the rise in interest rates on home loans, energy and food prices.
And the forecasts for next year are not encouraging. In the national budget for 2023, the government estimates that inflation will decrease to 4%. But the banking regulator foresees that the indicator will end up at 5.8%, which means even greater pressure on labor income. Although the government has increased the minimum wage from EUR 705 to EUR 760 in the private sector and to EUR 761.58 in the civil service, the increase is not enough to compensate for the real wage loss.
If we analyze the calendar of strikes and protests announced by various trade union organizations, the teaching class in 2023 will be the most combative. Parents should prepare for school closures as the Union of All Education Professionals (STOP) called for nationwide strikes between January 3rd and 31st. During the first week of classes, from January 3 to 6, the Independent Union of Teachers and Educators (SIPE) also envisages a partial shutdown during the first term of classes.
The strikes with the greatest impact on educational institutions are those of eight teacher and educator organizations, including the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof), one of the largest teachers’ union federations, affiliated with the CGTP. If negotiations with the Ministry of Education do not go smoothly by January 10, there will be an 18-day strike by district on the mainland, starting January 16 in Lisbon and ending February 8 in Porto, culminating in a nationwide demonstration on February 11. Only the National Federation of Teachers’ Unions (FNE), which is part of UGT, is awaiting negotiations with the executive without planned protests. “The magnitude of the challenge will depend on the government’s ability to respond,” stated the general secretary of this union structure, João Dias da Silva.
Among the key claims of the professors are “full counting of completed service, the end of advancement and evaluation quota vacancies, the end of uncertainty, holding extraordinary recruitment competitions, the elimination of abuses and illegalities in work schedules and the adoption of a specific pension regime,” Fenprof’s general secretary, Mário Nogueira, revealed to DN/Dinheiro Vivo.
Specifically, the union leader explains that “there are still six years, six months and 23 days of service to be counted, frozen during the time of the troika, plus between two and four years for those who were in the career in 2007 and it is necessary to create vacancies entry to the 5th and 7th echelons”.
“Almost six thousand teachers don’t get any further because they have no vacancies and lose service,” he emphasizes.
The end of the pay parity between a senior technician’s career and that of a teacher, with the new Single Remuneration Table (TRU), is another fuel for the protest. According to Mário Nogueira, “Since 1986, teachers have been paid the same as senior technicians at the top of their careers, but now the manager has eliminated this equation”. That is, senior technicians between the third and 14th positions are entitled to an increase of EUR 104.22, while teachers with a salary of up to EUR 2612.03 receive an additional EUR 52.11 or 2% if the salary exceeds that amount .
The end of equal pay also affected nurses, revealed to DN/DV, the national leader of the Union of Portuguese Nurses (SEP), Guadalupe Simões. In the case of this career, the union is demanding an end to uncertainty, the restoration of income equality with senior technicians and the hiring of nurses. For now, only a partial strike of these officials is planned, between 10:30 and 12:30 on February 5, at the Hospital de Évora. “The protest is intended to draw attention to the brutal shortage of staff and a debt of 12,000 hours,” emphasizes Guadalupe Simões.
The nurse believes that “next year the struggle will intensify and there may be more stops in hospitals and even health centers”.
The climate is just as tense in the port companies, also under the responsibility of the Public Administration. The National Union of Port Administration Workers (SNTAP) has called for a strike lasting several days until January 30, covering infrastructure in the mainland, Madeira and the Azores.
The SNTAP accuses the port administrations of “total lack of availability” to enter into dialogue on the proposed salary review for 2023, with the union making “multiple requests for meetings” that went unanswered, “namely by the Sines and Lisbon administrations”.
The Portuguese Association of Compound Food Industry for Animals (IACA) has already warned that this shutdown could leave companies without access to raw materials, leading to livestock stockouts. According to the IACA, eight ships carrying raw materials for animal feed have been delayed in unloading due to the strike in the ports, which could lead to additional costs for importers of €2 million until January, which will further increase the price of food.
“Workers will have to take to the streets and fight for their rights,” Sebastião Santana, general secretary of the Common Front of Public Administration Unions (Common Front), told the CGTP. For now, the union structure has no strikes or demonstrations planned, but “at the beginning of the year, the National Secretariat will meet to review the negotiation processes with the government and ultimately decide on new forms of protest,” he added.
The leader is not ruling out a national civil servant strike in 2023 in light of “the path of impoverishment imposed by the government”. It should be remembered that the Common Front, the only structure that has not signed the agreement with the government, defends a salary increase of 10%, with a minimum of 100 euros, for all state workers.
The executive act amending the TRU, resulting from the multi-year agreement signed by the Federation of Trade Unions of Public Administration and Entities with Public Purposes (FESAP), affects UGT and the Union of State Technical Personnel (STE), provides for an annual salary update until 2026, the end of the legislature, of 52.11 euros for all state workers with gross salaries up to 2612.03 euros or 2% for higher salaries, in addition to valuations of about 104 euros for other careers, such as senior technicians, technical assistants or operational assistants. Faced with the prospect of higher-than-expected inflation, FESAP Secretary General José Abraão says that “he will not be repelled by activating the clause allowing the review of increases, in case the macroeconomic scenario changes”.
In the private sector, several business interruptions are expected on February 9 at companies across all sectors of activity, as part of the National Day of Indignation, Protest and Strife convened by the CGTP, the only social partner not to sign the Income Improvement Agreement. The general secretary of the trade union federation, Isabel Camarinha, expects “a maximum of strikes and fighting across the country”.
“The Portuguese already suffered from low wages and pensions and now, with the brutal price increases, it will get even worse, which will increase social protest,” he emphasizes.
It should be recalled that the CGTP defends the adoption of an increase in the minimum wage of EUR 850 in 2023 against the EUR 760 approved by the executive, the reduction of the weekly working day from 40 to 35 hours per week, the repeal of the expiration of collective contracts, as well as “severe standards of labor law” such as the replacement of severance pay within 30 days of each year of seniority. The government has taken steps on this last point by increasing the compensation from 12 to 14 days, but it is not yet enough for the CGTP.
More moderately, UGT believes that “if the agreement with the government is fulfilled, it will be a big step towards social stability,” the deputy secretary general of that union structure, Sérgio Monte, told DN/DV . And he stressed that “there is a safeguard clause that allows for the necessary adjustments to be made” according to inflation and economic growth, which the government forecasts is expected to slow to 1.3% in 2023.
The government increased the minimum wage from 705 to 760 euros in the private sector and to 761.58 euros in the civil service, but that is not enough to compensate for the real income loss.
Salomé Pinto is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
