Nurses from 75 private health units in the country are on strike this Thursday, the first one carried out by these professionals to demand the improvement of working conditions and salary increases of 10%.
“From the information that has come to us, the dissatisfaction is great and the will to join the strike is immense, because the nurses want to see Better work conditionssaid Lusa Isabel Barbosa, leader of the Union of Portuguese Nurses (SEP).
Scheduled for the morning and afternoon shifts, this will be the first strike of about 4,200 nurses that work in the 75 health units covered by the Associação Portuguesa da Hospitalização Privada (APHP).
The nurses of these private units demand the implementation of the 35-hour work week and the regulation of the working day, a monthly salary increase for those who work in shifts and the payment of the prevention regime.
In addition, they demand an increase in the compensation of calls “painful hours” worked at nighton weekends and holidays, as well as a 10% salary increase and food subsidy for all nurses and 25 working days of vacation per year.
According to Isabel Barbosa, the negotiations are not closed, but the proposals presented by the APHP “do not meet the expectations of the nurses”, so it was decided to go ahead with the strike, which “is not an end, but a means to achieve better working conditions“.
At the beginning of March, the APHP, which represents the health units of the private sector, highlighted that it maintains “the spirit of collaboration with all the unions in the framework of collective bargaining”, considering that it is a “relevant instrument for workers and companies. .
Source: Observadora
