Portuguese Nurses Union calls for strike

The Portuguese Nurses’ Union called off Friday’s strike because it considered that the reason for the strike, which was to put pressure on the government to come up with solutions for these professionals, no longer made sense since the executive was “in leadership positions.”

In a statement, the Portuguese Nurses’ Union (SEP) explained that the strike announced on Friday was aimed at putting pressure on the Ministry of Health to set up a meeting for “negotiations to resolve various nursing issues”, from scoring to staff replacements. parity between nursing careers and higher technical careers in public administration.

The resignation of the Prime Minister on Tuesday, which was accepted by the President of the Republic, “determined that the current government is no longer fully prepared to govern. In other words, the government “performs managerial functions,” says the AKP.

These new circumstances, which forced the government to cancel planned negotiation meetings with other trade union structures, “made the goal of the strike announced for November 10 impossible,” he adds.

However, the AKP insists that nurses’ problems “will become more acute and will require solutions” and says that depending on the new political framework that the President of the Republic decides and announces, it will adjust its intervention and control plan. He also takes the opportunity to call on nurses to take part in Saturday’s demonstration in Lisbon and Porto, called by the CGTP.

Friday’s national strike was called on 19 October.

At the time, the SEP cited deteriorating working conditions, deregulation of working hours, overtime, loss of parity between nursing careers and higher technical careers in public administration, failure to complete assessment processes and a lack of measures to retain nurses in the National Health Service as reasons.