Nurses from 75 private health units in the country are on strike today, the first that these professionals have carried out to demand better working conditions and 10% salary increases.
"From the information that has come to us, dissatisfaction is great and the will to join the strike is immense, because nurses want to see working conditions improved", Isabel Barbosa, leader of the Portuguese Nurses Union (SEP) told Lusa.
Scheduled for morning and afternoon shifts, this will be the first strike by the approximately 4.200 nurses working in the 75 health units covered by the Associação Portuguesa da Hospitalização Privada (APHP).
The nurses in these private units demand the implementation of a 35-hour week and the regulation of working hours, a monthly salary increase for those who work in shifts and payment of the prevention regime.
In addition, they claim an increase in compensation for the so-called “difficult hours” worked at night, on weekends and holidays, as well as a 10% salary increase and a meal 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”, which is why it was decided to go ahead with the strike, which “is not an end, but a means to achieve better results”. work conditions".
At the beginning of March, the APHP, which represents health units in the private sector, stressed that it maintains “the spirit of partnership with all unions in the context of collective bargaining”, considering that this is a “relevant instrument for workers and companies”. .
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