Portuguese teachers strike after failed negotiations

Eight unions led a teachers’ strike on Monday that will last 18 days after the Education Ministry pushed back negotiation dates on the deadline to withdraw some proposals presented in previous negotiations.

A teachers’ strike that will last 18 days started on Monday and will affect different districts each day, starting in Lisbon, where a protest is scheduled in Rossio Square.

The teachers are contesting some of the proposals put forward by the Ministry of Education as part of the negotiations to revise the mobility and recruitment regime for teaching staff but are also demanding solutions to older problems related to their careers, working conditions and salaries.

The eight unions, who had initially considered that it was not the “appropriate time” for a strike, as the negotiation process with the ministry of education on hiring practices was underway, decided to call the strike after giving the ministry a deadline to withdraw some of the proposals presented in previous negotiations and open new negotiation processes on other issues.

The deadline ended on 10 January, and the day before, the Ministry of Education called the third round of negotiations for the 18th and 20th, in which a proposal for a negotiating calendar on other issues would also be discussed.

However, the secretary-general of the national union of professors (Fenprof) explained that the agendas would remain as planned because “the convening of a meeting does not change anything.”

On Friday, at the end of a four-day camp in front of the ministry of education, Mário Nogueira also said that from 20 January, everything is possible.

“I would say that it is a key day,” he said, adding that the ministry has to meet the teachers’ demands because “meetings without solutions do not answer the problems.”

“We want the meeting on the 20th to be a landmark one, and if there aren’t the answers we want, we’ll continue until 11 February,” he added, adding that on that day, a demonstration takes place in Lisbon.

(Mariana Caeiro | Lusa.pt)

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