Strike in civil service fulfilled expectations, says Common Front

“The balance is that the expectations we had for today’s national strike day were fulfilled. We had services closed from north to south of the country, we had a huge impact on the overwhelming majority of services”, said the coordinator of the Common Front, Sebastião Santana, in statements to Lusa.

“It will be difficult to find a public administration service that has functioned normally today, which is revealing of what the workers’ adherence to this strike was”, added the leader of the union structure that called for the national strike.

According to Sebastião Santana, the stoppage affected health services, education, finance, social security, local authorities “with swimming pools, libraries and shipyards closed” and also caused “serious disturbances” in justice.

For the leader of the Common Front, “the signal given today by public administration workers to the Government is clear and unequivocal: workers demand a different policy, one that values ​​their careers and their salaries, that defends public services and does not the continuation of this path of impoverishment and degradation of public services”.

Asked whether new forms of struggle are being prepared, the trade unionist said that “the future is already tomorrow”, indicating that “many thousands of public administration workers” will be at the national CGTP demonstration, in Lisbon, on Saturday.

“Following the 18th, it is up to the Government to guarantee social peace or the lack of it”, warned Sebastião Santana.

Throughout today, the unions reported on the levels of adherence to the strike across the country.

According to data from the unions, several hospitals only operated with minimal services in terms of admissions and emergencies, with no outpatient consultations and some surgeries were postponed.

Some schools and citizen shops closed due to the strike.

The national strike by civil servants, which started at 00:00 today, began at the start of the night shift for workers in the areas of health and solid urban waste collection (domestic waste), who were thus the first to enter strike.

Among the reasons for the strike called by the Common Front are the demand for immediate salary increases, the setting of maximum limits for the prices of goods and services, the valuation of careers and the reinforcement of public services.

For Saturday, a national demonstration is scheduled in Lisbon, promoted by the CGTP, for the general increase in wages and pensions in view of the rise in the cost of living.