The National Union of Nurses (SNE) has called an overtime strike on the Portuguese mainland from October 30 to November 25, with which it wants the government to correct the “stagnant wages” of these professionals.
A statement from the trade union organization indicates that “the current struggle of nurses is aimed at forcing the Government of the Republic, as did the governments of the Autonomous Region of the Azores and Madeira, to correct the wage inversion resulting from the law adopted in 2022.” on accounting for years of professional practice.”
According to the union, this is “an injustice compounded by the impact on the amount paid for overtime.”
The SNE’s demands focus on “beginning the process of revising the career and salary table with representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health, correcting the stagnation of nurses’ wages over the past nine years by signing a protocol of negotiations.” for a Global Workforce Agreement.”
The union complains that nurses have never been entitled to a Global Collective Agreement, “unlike other specialist health professions in the public administration, which have the same maximum degree of functional complexity (Level 3).”
“Without providing nurses with additional work, also called overtime, which in most situations is not even paid to them, the National Health Service (NHS) would not be as resilient and would not maintain the level of safety and high level of quality that has characterized it since its inception. creation 44 years ago, which was demonstrated during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the statement said.