Portuguese public sector workers strike, rally over small pay rise

Public sector workers including nurses, doctors, teachers, and transport drivers staged a one-day strike in Portugal on Friday demanding that the government increase its offer of a 0.3% pay rise in this year's budget that is to be voted in parliament next week. The strike, which unions said to shut down over 1,000 schools and hundreds of public services across the country, was the first by public sector workers since Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa was re-elected in October.

Hundreds of workers were bussed in from across Portugal to Lisbon to protest against a measure in the government's 2020 budget bill to limit to 0.3% their first pay increase after a 10-year wage freeze. "This measure shows their complete disrespect towards public sector workers," Sebastiao Santana, representative of Common Front Union, told Reuters.

Another union leader, Ana Avoila, told a news conference: "There's no reason for the government to act like we are still in the troika years - now, we have money and the means to increase pay". Portugal was subject to harsh austerity measures in 2011-2014 under the terms of a 78 billion euro ($86 billion) bailout provided by the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund - known as the 'troika'.

The government said it would hold negotiations with workers on Feb. 10, but unions deemed it "unacceptable" given the final budget vote is being held four days earlier, on Feb. 6. The striking unions do not have a set of common demands for wage increases. Costa's administration wants to bring about the first surplus in the country's 45-year democratic history this year and so is keen to reduce Portugal's public debt burden, one of the highest in the eurozone.

Nazare Costa Cabral, president of the government's advisory board for public finances, commenting on the workers' demands, said Portugal could not afford to move away from strong fiscal discipline. "Reducing public debt is a matter of strengthening our independence," he told the state broadcaster RTP. ($1 = 0.9014 euros)