Romania, Portugal

The SINTAP trade union has reached an agreement with Águas de Portugal water company that applies to the union’s members and delivers a 3% increase, with a minimum of €53, an increase in the food allowance to €7.60, as well as establishing an entry salary in the company of €905. Workers with more than 10 years’ service get further improvements. Meanwhile, the STAL trade union has been active in the waste sector where it has been involved in protest and industrial action to secure better pay and conditions for workers in the FCC and Resinorte companies. At FCC the demand is for a 15% pay

Trade unions, including Sanitas and Columna, have managed to secure pay increases for workers in health and social services. According to Sanitas, increases in the health sector vary according to occupation but range up to 26.8% with 20% in social assistance. The union has also been able to resolve discrepancies in salaries affecting a number of specific occupations. Meanwhile Columna has also been active in local government where it organised strike action on 19 March involving nearly 19000 workers as it tries to ensure that the pay increases that apply to health, education and social care

The Sanitas and Columna trade unions are trying to make progress on a number of fronts, including securing pay increases for workers in health, care and local government for 2024 and to negotiate sector-wide agreements in all three sectors. In local government Columna is calling for guarantees that workers will be paid according to a national pay grid and no longer covered by each local authority and it also wants agreements to cover the sector or groups of authorities and not council-by-council. Both Sanitas and Columna are also calling for a pay rise for workers in social assistance and to

The SINTAP trade union has negotiated a new collective agreement with Private Institutions of Social Solidarity (IPSS) which provide care services to children and the elderly among others. The agreement includes a pay increase which works out around 3.75% on average. There is also a service-related increase of €21.00, for every five years of service, up to a limit of six seniority periods. SINTAP sees this as a very positive outcome but is committed to continue to work to secure IPSS workers the same salary and career development conditions as those in public administration.

The SINTAP and STAL trade unions have called for a wide range of improvements to the pay and conditions of both public sector and voluntary firefighters. SINTAP members joined a lobby of the government on 1 February and set out their demands, including updating of various allowances covering risk, hardship and permanent availability; revision of the Staff Statute of Professional Firefighters of Local Administration; updating pay scales – (not done since 2002, with exception of the annual increases resulting from the State Budget); and revision of retirement age. Meanwhile, STAL has been making

Tough negotiating by the Sanitas health union and effective mobilisation of its members is delivering positive outcomes. Following discussions with the government on 25 January the union says that there will be a 20% increase in the salary fund so that all employees in health benefit from an average salary increase of 20% in 2024, paid in two instalments; a 20% increase in salaries for specialized personnel in care and social work; assessment of personnel needs in the public health system and unblocking of posts; and the start of negotiations for a collective agreement covering social work

The Sanitas trade union, representing workers in health and social care has welcomed the government decision to allow recruitment to over 8000 positions in the public health system that it had previously blocked. The union had threatened to strike over the issue and while it sees this initiative as a step in the right direction it is calling for much more to be done to address the critical shortage of staff in health and social care. Sanitas estimates that the 8000 jobs to be filled cover only around a quarter of the needs of the health and social care sectors and that the government will have

Following longstanding problems in ensuring full implementation of the law on salaries that applies to health and social care staff, the Sanitas trade union has declared a labour conflict. For over two years the government has blocked full implementation of the law and the proper calculation of salaries. Bonuses are stuck at levels dating back to 2018 and overtime is unpaid. A holiday allowance has not been granted and the food allowance is also linked to 2018 pay levels rather than current salaries. The situation is made worse by the repeated blocking of recruitment to fill vacancies, leading

Members of the STAL local government union are mobilising for a busy end to the year with a series of actions to push for improved pay and conditions. In Coimbra there is a long-running strike related to special payments for workers in municipal swimming pools while transport workers are demanding decent facilities for drivers and are on strike on 14-15 December. Municipal workers in Almada will mobilise on 21 December over pay and the cost of living while waste workers take action on 22, 23 and 26 December in Oeiras against unilateral changes to shifts and working time. Finally, workers at

Both the SINTAP and STAL unions have expressed discontent with the pay increase on offer for public service workers in 2024. The overall wage bill will rise by over 5% with increases ranging from 3% to over 6% depending on position in the pay scale. The two unions argue that this level of increase will not compensate for the recent loss of purchasing power because of higher inflation. STAL estimates a 5.1% fall in real terms in 2022-23 alone. SINTAP has called for a re-opening of negotiations while STAL has called a national strike for 27 October. The strike, also supported by the Frente Comum

Over 500 delegates took part in a national conference organised by the STAL trade union on 20 September to reaffirm priority demands on pay, career development, working conditions and stronger public services. The activists also underlined the need to intensify mobilisations to achieve these objectives. The meeting endorsed the demands set out by the CGTP-IN confederation for 2024, including a 15% increase in wages, with a minimum of €150 for all workers; an increase in the national minimum wage in public administration to €910 in January 2024, reaching €1000 later in the year; a standard 35

The STAL trade union is mobilising members in three separate disputes involving workers in parks and gardens, waste and municipalities. A four-day strike began on 3 August at the publicly-owned PSML company that maintains major buildings, parks and gardens in Sintra. The dispute is over a range of issues including deregulation of work schedules, integration into the pay system and allowances for employees who work in remote areas. Employees of the EMARP public company that provides cleaning and waste services in Portimão began their four-day strike on 4 August with demands over pay, salary