LISBON (Dispatches) – Tens of thousands of Portuguese teachers and school staff have poured into the streets of the capital Lisbon to demand higher wages and better working conditions in one of the biggest protests of recent years.
The peaceful demonstration was organized by the Union of All Education Professionals (STOP).
Protesters held banners and shouted slogans as they urged Portugal’s Education Minister Joao Costa to step down.
Teachers on the lowest pay scale make around 1,100 euros ($1,191.08) per month and even teachers in the top band typically earn less than 2,000 euros monthly. Protesters say current wages are too low, particularly given the cost of living crisis.
“Teachers deserve a fair salary because we’ve worked all our lives... we’ve never been corrupt and we’ve never stolen like the bad example that is unfortunately coming from politicians,” 62-year-old history teacher Maria Duarte said as waited for the march to kick off.
The Socialists, led by Prime Minister Antonio Costa, won an outright parliamentary majority in an election a year ago.
The government, however, has had a bumpy ride since then winning the election. Some 13 ministers and secretaries of state have left their posts since then, some over allegations of past misconduct or questionable practices.
In the French capital, Paris, hundreds of Yellow Vest protesters marched on Saturday against French President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms and the cost-of-living crisis.
Footage shows hundreds of protesters marching in the French capital with signs and banners amid a heavy police presence.
“Today we work, we have a salary, but despite the salary, we can’t meet our needs because we are ‘in fact more inundated with bills and we have almost nothing or zero money left to live on,” a protester said.
“We cannot accept that in 2023 there will be people who are looking for food in garbage cans, people who have housing problems. I think we are entitled to demand better,” added a second.
The Macron government’s divisive overhaul to pensions will see the retirement age rise from 62 to 64 by 2030, sparking widespread criticism and calls for industrial action.
In England and Wales, teachers are expected to go on strike next month, joining several other public sector workers who have walked out en masse in a dispute with the government over pay and working conditions.
The teachers have expressed readiness for industrial action as the result of a ballot belonging to the National Education Union (NEU), the UK’s largest teaching union, which is due to be announced on Monday.
The NEU called for a “fully funded, above-inflation pay rise” following a decade of eroded wages, after a strike ballot by a different teachers’ union fell short of the required turnout threshold.
The Sunday Times, citing union sources, has already reported that members had voted to back strikes beginning in February.
If teacher strikes are confirmed on Monday, it would likely intensify the walkouts that are already disrupting swathes of the British economy.