Days before border control agency inspectors threatened a series of walkouts at Portugal’s airports, strike action has been averted.
Calling it “Government cedes to SEF inspectors’ demands and stops strike”, Diário de Notícias writes that a MoU (memorandum of understanding) was signed between the agency workers’ union and the secretaries of state for Internal Administration.
The bottom line is that SEF has won an important pay battle, bringing parity with GNR and PSP counterparts for “services outside the country”, as well as other concessions which the government had been loathe to grant until the reality of a peak-season airport strike months before a make-or-break election forced its hand.
As SEF union representative Acácio Pereira told reporters in the run up to this week’s 11th hour ‘negotiations’: “We aren’t asking any more than our equals”, stressing the government’s stance had been “inadmissible, undignified, politically unsustainable and juridically abhorrent”.
Reactions to the story saw readers commenting: “Of course! Elections are at the door…” and “this is the courageous government that we deserve! It caves to all corporate groups: police, SEF…”
Article courtesy of the Portugal Resident http://portugalresident.com/
