Ventura says teachers will ‘continue to carry the house on their backs’

On Tuesday, leader Chegi defended that the president of the republic should not have enacted a government decree on the recruitment of teachers, believing that teachers “will continue to live with the house on their backs.”

“Had Chega been in a position to take the presidency of the Republic through any of her elements, she would not have made this diploma public,” said Andre Ventura, despite saying he understands the reasons cited by the President of the Republic for this. .

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Lisbon housing initiative, President Chega said the government wants to do “the opposite of what should be done.”

“Because teachers will not only continue to live with their homes on their backs, but the level of instability will even increase in some cases, which will further increase the level of conflict in the teacher-government relationship, which is already very conflicted,” he warned.

Ventura believes that “if the government has spent six months negotiating a diploma that does not have conditions to appease people, this shows a complete failure of the government’s strategy.”

Criticizing the prime minister for not being directly involved in negotiations between the government and trade unions, as he urged, Chegi’s leader lamented that “the only time he comes is to greet the diploma promulgated by the President of the Republic.”

“Antonio Costa has to show his face at this moment because of the failure of these negotiations, such a failure was that the teachers are still on strike, the protests will continue for the next few months and many schools will continue to pay a heavy price. for it,” the statement said.

“I would argue that this is the sole responsibility of the government and that Marcelo Rebelo de Souza is probably – and right now – pointing out the shortcomings of this diploma, already signaling to the government that it will require responsibility in this regard, and that we all know that these obligations will be implemented in the future, in the near future,” he said.

President Chega was in Lisbon’s Campo de Ourique district on Tuesday to point out the availability of houses and “mark housing as the main topic of this legislative session.”

“There are a number of dilapidated buildings abandoned by the government that could well be used for housing, and which are not suitable because of the inefficiency of the Lisbon city council, because of the inefficiency of the central government, and we still have them in the city center, where in country, a square meter is more expensive, buildings that could and should serve as housing for the middle class, but are not, fall into disrepair, are abandoned by the state, and then the state asks citizens to save their buildings and forces them to rent,” he criticized.

Andre Ventura also repeated the call for the President of the Republic to veto the government’s “More Housing Program” and again indicated that Chega had scheduled the 18th parliamentary debate on banking and housing credit.

On Monday, the President of the Republic published a government decree on the recruitment of teachers, despite the fact that his proposals on this issue were not accepted, so as not to “postpone the expectations of about eight thousand teachers.”

In a note published on the official website of the President of the Republic on the Internet, the head of state indicates that “several proposals were made on this diploma, as well as a specific proposal for a mandatory one, in order to make it more sustainable, without thereby introducing additional inequalities to the existing ones” .

“Although neither the submitted proposal, nor another more minimalist one, was approved, at a certain point, proposed in dialogue with the President of the Council of Ministers, the President of the Republic considers it necessary to promulgate the present legal framework,” he adds.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa states that he has decided, “in view of the publication by the government in Diário da República of Decree No. 111-A/2023 of April 26, which opens the competition for only two thousand teachers, for next year, based on the current wording of the law and because the new law has not been adopted and published and, therefore, has not yet entered into force.

On the other hand, he argues that “postponing the adoption of the law even within the statutory period of 40 days ending May 15, or not passing this law in this context, would mean postponing the expectations of about eight thousand teachers, in addition to being left without the consecration by law of some of their specific requirements adopted by the Government.