Employees of Portuguese consulates and embassies around the world intend to go on strike from the 1st of September, according to information from the union of the category announced this Tuesday (23).
The strike is expected to last until at least the 7th, when it should coincide with the scheduled visit of Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to Brazil for the celebrations of the bicentennial of Independence.
The STCDE (Union of Consular Workers, Diplomatic Missions and Central Services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), representative of the category, demands the implementation of a series of measures, mainly referring to salary updates, which would have been previously negotiated and agreed with the government.
The central cause of the claims is in Brazil. Since 2013, the salaries of employees at consulates and embassies have been paid in reais, considering the exchange rate of the euro at R$2.60 – today, the conversion is from €1 to R$5.13, but it was once more than R$ 6.50, at the end of 2021. In practice, therefore, salaries are being deposited almost in half, points out the category.
Prior to that, employees were paid in reais based on the euro exchange rate on the payday. The change in methodology would have come after embassy officials entered the Brazilian court contesting the salaries in euros — at the time, the real was appreciated. A TAP plane, an airline controlled by the Portuguese government, had the attachment determined in the scope of this action.
“I call this change revenge,” says the union’s assistant secretary general, Alexandre Lopes Vieira. In addition to the readjustment, the category asks for the publication of new salary tables, with updated remuneration values consistent with the current global inflationary scenario, in addition to the inclusion of all workers in the social security system.
According to the union leader, the strike is planned for all countries, not just for services in Brazil. “It’s a strike to have an impact,” he says. He points out that the Socialist Party governs with an absolute majority and without obstacles in the Legislative, which would facilitate the approval of the category’s claims — at the time of the change, Portugal was governed by the center-right PSD (Social Democratic Party).
“The rule is already made. They just send it to Parliament. If they don’t do anything, there will be a strike.” The negotiations between the union and the government do not include the retroactivity of the salary payment since 2013.
Sought, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal did not directly cite the threat of strike. In a note, he stated that “at the moment, there are internal procedures to implement some solutions to identified problems” and that the dialogue with the unions “assumes the greatest importance to achieve solutions that serve the interests of all”.
In the assessment of the STCDE, the outdated pay tables hinder the dignified subsistence of many workers in the Portuguese consular network.
Valdeir Carvalho, an employee at the Rio de Janeiro consulate, says that in recent years he had to transfer his three children from private to public schools and cancel his health plan. “I had a house and I paid around R$2,000 in installments for it, but I was forced to sell it and live on rent,” he says. According to him, other colleagues are going through the same situation.
The salary freeze still hits admissions — low salaries don’t attract applicants. According to the public notice for hiring the consulate in Rio, in November, a technical analyst, with no higher education requirement, receives R$ 2,711 per month. “The younger ones arrive, soon realize that they earn very little and leave. There is a total exhaustion of the older employees”, says Lopes Vieira.
Complaints of delays in issuing passports and other documents are constant in several countries. In offices in Brazil, it can take months to get an appointment, and in their profiles on social networks, complaints accumulate.
While the situation is not resolved, employees of the São Paulo consulate have already filed a lawsuit against the government of Portugal. In Brazil, cases have been stalled at the Superior Labor Court since 2020. At the same time, at least eight civil servants have filed lawsuits in the Lisbon Courts — three have already received favorable opinions.
Raimundo Luis de Oliveira, president of Sindnações, representative of workers at embassies and consulates in Brazil, says that there are no parallel cases in representations in other countries. “Since the 2008 crisis, we have collective agreements, but not on wages that have been frozen for years, as is the case with employees in Portugal,” he says.
