Portugal: Consular workers announce five-day strike
The union of diplomatic workers at the consulates of Portugal delivers this Friday (25) a five-day notice of strike. The strike notice provides for a strike between September 5th and 9th.
Portugal Digital with Lusa
Portuguese Embassy in Brasilia
The deputy secretary general of the Union of Consular Workers, Diplomatic Missions and Central Services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (STCDE), Alexandre Vieira, said that, if it materializes, the stoppage will coincide with the visit that the President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is scheduled to go to Brazil, on the occasion of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of September, which is celebrated on September 7th.
“The strike notice has not yet been sent, which will be announced on Friday, taking into account that we have the meeting of the national board of the STCDE”, said the union leader. The strike notice comprises a strike between September 5th and 9th.
At stake is the mechanism of current changes, a “long negotiation” that, according to the STCDE, has been going on since the time when the Minister of Internal Administration, José Luís Carneiro, was Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities and continues with his successor. in the president, Berta Nunes, continuing with the then Minister of Foreign Affairs and current of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva.
Alexandre Vieira pointed out that a new exchange rate mechanism was negotiated, which has to do with the question of who wins receiving in the currency of the country in which he is.
According to STCDE, in the States of America, where the dollar is more valued than the euro, or in Switzerland, where the same happens with the least Swiss, “what is happening is that the employees have all started to earn”.
“Imagine you have a thousand euros and from one moment to the next you already have 900 and the next month you only have 800”, he exemplifies.
According to the union leader, Augusto Santos Silva, “before leaving for the Assembly of the Republic, still as Minister of Foreign Affairs, he informed us at the meeting that the process was in the Ministry of Finance”.
Another of the reasons for calling the five-day strike has to do with the head of the PSD/CDS-PP, when Paulo Porta went with a salary scale in which workers workers to work in local currency, in reais.
“They ended up fixing a fictitious exchange rate of 2.60 today when it is at 5.25 or 5.30. Employees are losing every month because an exchange rate is being applied. That is to say, a fictitious exchange rate that does not even exist at the Bank of Portugal, it does not exist anywhere”, he lamented.
“However, it passed over to this Government, and what happened was that the door was made and, according to what we have, Finance is already in the office of the Minister of Finance. [Fernando Medina]”, he added.
The third reason for the strike “has to do with the hiring of new employees, because the posts are completely deserted, because the posts are very low and also have to do with the new salary tables”, said Alexandre Vieira.
“The situation has reached a breaking point. We have all the strike associates and we a last minister the contact for the office of the lord of foreign affairs [João Gomes Cravinho] in order to unblock this situation. It’s in his hands,” she reiterated.
“It is in his hands to be able to avoid prior notice, and in particular the prior notice demonstrations”, stressed Alexandre Vieira, who records the presence of Marcelo Rebe de Sousa in Brazil.
According to the union leader, “several Brazilian unions contacted” so that, in compliance with Brazilian legislation, a demonstration could be called in defense of the STCDE’s claims.