Lisbon, Dec. 3, 2024 (Lusa) - Public administration workers will once again stage a general strike on Friday and health and education could be the services most affected, the deputy general secretary of Fesinap told Lusa on Tuesday.
The strike, called by the National Federation of Independent Trade Unions in the Public Administration and Entities with Public Purposes (Fesinap), starts at 00:00 on Friday and lasts until 23:59, covering central, regional and local administration.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency, the deputy secretary-general of Fesinap anticipates that education, including teachers, and health, including doctors and nurses’ could be the sectors most affected, “as is often the case”.
Helder Sá prefers, however, not to anticipate expectations of adherence and also points out that ‘for hospitals there are minimum services’, as the law obliges.
According to the deputy general secretary of Fesinap, one reason for calling this strike concerns the statements made by the Minister of Education on Friday. In them, he dismissed the possibility of creating a special career for non-teaching school workers, one of the main demands of the operational assistants.
‘This is causing a great deal of discomfort,’ he pointed out, also accusing the minister of “not knowing what's going on in schools” when he said that the government's intention is for workers who deal directly with pupils to be able to devote themselves exclusively to educational duties, leaving the other tasks to other operational assistants.
He also pointed out that, due to the decentralisation process, non-teaching staff ‘are employees of the municipalities’.
On the other hand, Helder Sá also points out that, although the health auxiliary technician career came into force in January, some Local Health Units have not included the professionals on the list.
Among the federation's main demands is ‘a pay rise for all workers with at least 10 years’ service in a fully-fledged public employment relationship, regardless of the type of contract’ and “as long as they haven't progressed via the Integrated System for Performance Management and Assessment in Public Administration (SIADAP)”, the review of this evaluation system, its revision, as well as the replacement of lost points for career progression, as well as the institution of the meal card in the Public Administration ‘through negotiation in the Collective Agreement of Public Employers (ACEP), for the daily value of 10.20 euros, free of tax’.
JMF/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
