More than 300 prison guards from different parts of the country demonstrated this afternoon in front of the Custoias prison in Matosinhos, Porto district, demanding “decent salaries and professional development.”
Dressed in black and wearing T-shirts with the words “abandoned”, the prison guards began the protest by singing the national anthem and then remained silent until they left the site and headed to the center of Porto to join a demonstration called by the PSP platform of trade unions and associations GNR.
“The dissatisfaction is general, the unity of the prison guards is visible. This is the beginning of a non-partisan movement, free of trade unions, that wants to fight for better conditions,” one of the organizers explained in statements to reporters. protest by Fabio Silva.
Professionals, he explained, “feel abandoned” by the guardianship authorities and various governments: “Our fight has been going on for a long time, since 2014, and it will not stop here,” he assured.
According to this prison guard working at Kustojas Prison, the prison brought together guards “from all over the country, mostly from the northern zone.”
In a conversation with Lusa, another prison guard, Jorge Alves, explained that there is a “shortage” of guards in prisons: “We do a lot for very little, and we have to do a lot because, for example, there are not enough bosses. …They force me to act as a boss without getting paid as a boss, they give me skills that don’t belong to me and without the training to have them.”
“There should have been about 4,900 people in the security force, but there are only about 4,000,” he said.
These professionals also complain about low salaries and discrimination against other professionals: “This movement was fueled by the huge inequality between colleagues from the judicial police and others. We agree that they deserve this increase, but we deserve it too.” “We perform equally dangerous functions, but we are discriminated against,” he said.
Prison guards are also asking, as Fabio Silva explained, “to introduce a performance appraisal system that will allow for faster career progression and an increase in basic salary to keep up with the rising cost of living.”
“In 2011, a security guard at the beginning of his career earned about 65% above the minimum wage. Today, a security guard at the beginning of his career earns about 11% above the minimum wage. The minimum wage has increased, inflation has increased, the cost of living has increased, but we get the same thing,” he gave an example.