The strike, called by the Union of All Education Professionals (STOP), ends on Friday, and has the support of 23 teachers in these conditions, who on Monday positioned themselves in the schoolyard with posters demanding "Equity", "Justice" and calling for "No to Division, Yes to Union", "Same Functions Equal Conditions" and "Respect".
According to Sandra Feliciano, a teacher at EPL for 17 years, the school's teachers went on strike due to the silence of the Portuguese Ministry of Education, which, she argued, had not resolved the situation since the previous school year.
"What led to this strike was the failure to keep its word from the Portuguese Ministry of Education," said Sandra Feliciano, highlighting that at the end of the last school year "conditions of equity among teachers" were promised.
"Those who are mobility teachers, who come from Portugal, who have been here for a few years, and the school staff teachers, and that didn't happen and at the moment we are in a precarious situation", she highlighted.
Sandra Feliciano commented that current salaries are lower than what they had before becoming school staff, "which makes absolutely no sense."
The teacher highlighted that by moving to the board and with a different status, new taxes were added, which had an impact on the final income.
According to Sandra Feliciano, compared to other colleagues there is a "big difference" in salary, because they receive, for example, a support allowance, which those on the staff do not have.
"We believe that we have the right to have our work recognised in the same way as that of our other colleagues, that we all do the same work. Portuguese law states that any worker who does the same job as another worker must receive the same type of compensation and that is not happening here," she stressed.
Given the silence of the Portuguese authorities, she said, the strike was a last resort.
"We don't want to be on strike, we want to teach, we want to do our work and we can't do our work because no one listens to us, we've been writing letters for months, the union has also been intervening with the entities, we did everything we could do and they didn't listen to us", she highlighted.
In turn, Carla Plácido, a teacher at EPL for seven years, said that the situation affects the classes of teachers on strike and the students "who are without teachers".
"The teachers are at school, but they are not effectively doing their job. This was the last resort, we did not want to go on strike at all, but we feel that all the letters we sent (...) did not receive any response," she said.
The only response was that the situation was being analyzed, the teacher highlighted, remembering that these teachers applied for the competition in August 2024 and started working in September.
"We have at least six months until the situation is resolved, which is extremely complicated for us financially," she said, considering the lack of answers "sad, disappointing."
"The Ministry doesn't even listen. If there is a shortage of teachers, those who want to work are not letting them work, with decent conditions, which is what we want, and for there to be no inequalities between us, because inequality promotes disunity among teachers," she added.
