Portuguese Nurses Union Announces New Forms of Struggle This Month

The Portuguese Nurses’ Union (SEP) announced this Friday 12 new strikes this month, including 10 partial strikes that will start on Monday.

The announcement came on the day of a national strike, which the union says is expected to involve around 80% of workers.

“We have a plan to continue the struggle. There are no atomic bombs in this process, so it is a persistent, continuous, systematically organized struggle that will take place in August, with 10 ‘partial strikes’ that will become ‘national and longer strikes’ in September,” said Jose Carlos Martins, the president of the SEP, at a press conference at the São José Hospital in Lisbon.

These new forms of struggle will develop unless the Ministry of Health takes a “reasonable, fair and reasonable position,” he added.

According to the union leader, the protests will begin “on Monday” with a rally at the local health department of Guarda, and the following day with a strike on the morning shift in Viseu and a rally.

Asked if he was afraid that these strikes could damage relations with the Ministry of Health, José Carlos Martins replied that “strikes are legal and necessary in any negotiation process.”

“They are a weapon and a tool with which nurses must express to their employer that they are not satisfied with what is being offered,” he said, noting that what the profession needs is not “peace and money” but “fair, reasonable proposals” from the Ministry of Health, because the current ones are “a disgrace.”

Jose Carlos Martins said the lack of solutions to all of the nurses’ problems from the Health Ministry had led to “a very strong commitment from nurses” to the fighting.

He stressed that the indignation of professionals is reflected this Friday in “hundreds and hundreds of functional units of health centers” that are “without nurses or very few”, as well as in “hundreds and hundreds of hospital services with 100 percent compliance with the strike”, although some are provided with a minimum level of services.

“The fight of nurses will continue in the face of this feeling, because the shame of what the Ministry of Health presents and what it does not present has deeply affected the soul and dignity of nurses,” he commented.

The nurses’ demands include an effective increase in pay scales that compensate for risk and hardship, starting with earlier retirement, eliminating the “injustice of retroactive pay from 2018” and hiring more nurses, admitting new ones and tying up the unstable.

“Even in these uncertain circumstances, nurses worked 5.1 million hours of overtime as of December 31, 2023, which is a good reflection of the increased effort they put in,” the union leader explained, emphasizing that professionals do not want offers of 40 hours, full dedication and incentives, but rather the value of “certain and constant rewards.”

Asked about the statements by Health Minister Ana Paula Martins, who said she wanted the negotiations with nurses to come closer to the “fair expectations of professionals,” but reminded that they depended on the ability of the country’s budget to respond, the union leader responded that it was necessary to find a balance.

However, he stressed that the “fair and reasonable proposals” they were putting on the table were fiscally viable within the €12bn revenue the NHS receives each year.

“In addition, the government has, for example, about 500 million euros to pay for services abroad and buys private health care,” he noted, arguing that to reduce these costs it must retain and attract more specialists.