The Tax Workers Union (STI) will prepare protest actions, not excluding calling strikes in 2026 to force the Government to negotiate labor and salary demands, the president of the union structure admitted this Friday, December 12th, to Lusa.
The decision to “toughen the position” of the union was discussed this Friday during a plenary of workers held online, in which more than 2,000 employees from the Tax and Customs Authority (AT) participated, the president of the STI, Gonçalo Rodrigues, told Lusa at the end of the meeting.
“We want the Government to open a negotiating table. We always prefer to negotiate and work to find solutions than to protest, [mas] We will gradually toughen our position”he warned.
The meeting took place one day after the general strike scheduled by the CGTP and the UGT, and served as a way for the STI to consult workers on the steps to be taken in the coming months with the aim of getting Luís Montenegro’s executive to open a negotiation table that responds to the tax workers’ demands.
Gonçalo Rodrigues says that the STI management wanted to listen to workers about whether they should “move immediately towards scheduling strikes or whether we should gradually tighten our position, trying to bring the Government to the negotiating table”.
Given both hypotheses, “Most people considered that [o sindicato deve] try to find points for dialogue and, at the same time, organize some forms of struggle”he stated.
The leader of the STI admits to holding demonstrations, strikes involving the use of their own vehicles by workers and partial strikes that cause an impact, such as this Friday’s plenary, which forced the temporary closure of dozens of tax offices across the country from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm and caused disruptions to public service during that period, while the meeting was taking place.
“There are many issues that we can put into practice before the strike. But the strike, of course, is always on the table”he insisted, explaining that, until then, carrying out “partial strikes in certain areas of AT or in certain regions” is a possibility.
Gonçalo Rodrigues remembers that “the National Directorate [do STI] there is already a mandate from the General Council to schedule strikes for periods longer than five days”.
The objective of the protests, he says, is that the executive, “in the next two-three months, maybe not so much, keep your word” and negotiate.
Gonçalo Rodrigues states that the union wants an answer to the “huge lack of personnel [no fisco]”, for the “enormous aging of AT staff”.
The union leader also defends a change in the way “in which AT is recruiting people to the company, without training and without the specific tax and customs course, overloading colleagues who are working and at the same time trying to teach”, a resolution of the “very serious problem of lack of material” and “completely obsolete and outdated material” (such as computers), as well as the regulation of the special career regime for tax and customs management and inspection.
Regarding this last point, the workers’ representative recalls that the 2019 decree-law that defined this regime provides for the implementation of a permanent evaluation model for professionals in special inspection, management and auditing careers, which has yet to be implemented, with the union arguing that this system serves as a mechanism to accelerate careers.
It is to discuss these claims that the STI demands the opening of a negotiating table.
“Our objective is (…) to try to make the Government understand that confrontation is the worst way forward. But if the Government’s option is confrontation, we have no alternative”warns Gonçalo Rodrigues.