Government and teachers meet again today for negotiations

The Government will welcome the unions again today to continue negotiations on the recovery of teachers’ service time with different counter-proposals on the table. Meetings at the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation, in Lisbon, start at 2pm with the smaller unions (ASPL, FENEI, FEPECI, Pró-Ordem, SEPLEU, SIPE, SIPPEB, SNPL, SPLIU and Stop) and at 5pm The National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof) is welcomed, followed by the National Education Federation (FNE) from 6:30 pm.

After the guardianship presented its proposal on the 3rd, which foresees the gradual return of six years, six months and 23 days of frozen time at an annual average of 20%, starting in September this year, the organizations are now offering different counter-proposals. . The FNE proposes the recovery of 2,393 days from July 1st and over four years: 30% in 2024, 30% in 2025, 20% in 2026 and the last 20% in 2027.

On the other hand, Fenprof wants the process to be completed more quickly – over just three years – and has identified three red lines in the Government’s proposal, including the repeal of the career progression “accelerator”, which allows affected teachers for the two periods of career freezing to recover the time they spent waiting for a vacancy for the 5th and 7th levels, and which is also contested by the FNE. Fenprof also defends the suspension of access vacancies to these levels of the teaching career during the process of recovering service time, as well as compensation in the value of the retirement for teachers who will no longer have the possibility of recovering, in full, the six years, six months and 23 days.

At the end of the first round of negotiations, minister Fernando Alexandre admitted that he was available to make “some adjustments” to the proposal presented, bringing it closer to the union’s demands. In addition to the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation, the Secretary of State for Educational Administration and Innovation, Pedro Dantas da Cunha, and the Secretary of State for Public Administration, Marisa Garrido, will be present at today’s meetings.