The coordinator of the Union of All Education Professionals (STOP) appealed this Saturday, January 28, to the thousands of demonstrators present at the protest in Lisbon so that, next week, they stop and «close schools from North to South of the country» .
«In the next two days, before the minimum services, we will stop and close schools from North to South. We will not be silent. We don't stop», shouted André Pestana, during a speech made in front of the Palácio de Belém, where thousands of teachers and non-teaching staff were present.
«The United School will never be defeated» was the slogan heard after the appeal made by André Pestana, coordinator of the union that started a strike in December in schools that will last until February.
On Friday, the ministry released the decision to move forward with minimum services in schools from 1 February, Wednesday. Therefore, STOP appeals to school workers to intensify the struggle in the first two days of next week.
According to André Pestana, today's demonstration «was the biggest ever», stating that it had «more than one hundred thousand people»: «if in the last demonstration (which took place two weeks ago), the police said that we were 20 thousand and after all, we were one hundred thousand, imagine how many there are today, when the police say that we are about 80 thousand».
Teachers and non-teaching staff demand better working conditions and wages. STOP asks that all people working in schools have a raise of 120 euros to face the increase in the cost of living.
In addition to the STOP protests, strikes organized by SIPE and a platform made up of eight unions are taking place, which include the two largest union structures in the education sector: the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof) and the National Federation of Education (FNE).
One of the reasons for the protests has to do with the Ministry of Education's proposal for a new model for selecting and placing teachers.
Last week, the ministry and unions carried out the third round of negotiations within the framework of the new recruitment model, which ended without an agreement.
Yesterday's rally began at around 13 pm in front of the Ministry of Education and ended at 00 pm with the demonstrators chanting "No Stop" and Victory".
A representative team of the demonstrators was received at the Belém Palace by the former minister of education and current advisor for the area of Education Isabel Alçada, who took notes of the claims, said André Pestana.
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