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The strike was called by the National Union of Higher Education (SNESup), with the aim of giving teachers the possibility of refusing to work if they consider that the health conditions necessary to respond to the covid-19 pandemic are not guaranteed.
When he gave the notice, about two weeks ago, the president of the union told Lusa that it was a protest “for the right to health.”
“We want to give people the possibility to say ‘no’, to indicate that, in fact, the conditions to be able to teach are not metGonçalo Leite Velho said, pointing out that in addition to the right to health, the right to resistance is also at stake.
For the reasons that motivated it, SNESup does not foresee a date for the end of the strike, which should last as long as the teachers understand that health security problems persist.
“Our goal is to protect teachers while this pandemic situation lasts and until we see the full protection of these people guaranteed by the institutions and the Government.”Stressed the president of the union.
Two issues under discussion
These are two particular problems: the situation of risk professionals and the operating conditions in some institutions.
As for risk teachers, the union reports uneven responses from universities and polytechnics that have dealt with a similar problem in very different ways.
“We have seen a discretionary application of the special duty of protection. On the one hand, the teachers who were being recognized for this special duty of protection and in the case of other teachers did not”, Explained the president of SNESup.
In the case of teachers who have been denied the request not to teach face-to-face classes for health reasons, the justification indicated by Gonçalo Leite Velho is, above all, economic.
“They simply denied the substitution due to the impossibility of hiring other professors,” he said, highlighting that this is a problem that occurs, above all, in practical disciplines, since some universities and polytechnics have chosen to teach theoretical classes to distance.
The representatives of the rectors of the universities of the polytechnic rectors had already explained the situation of the professors integrated into risk groups, which would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, admitting that some cases can be quite complex.
For SNESup, however, solutions must be applied uniformly, through alternatives that include teleworking or hiring substitute teachers when the former is not possible.
On the other hand, The union also denounces failures in the operation of some institutions, where security conditions are not guaranteed, denouncing cases of classes with more than 100 students in amphitheaters where air circulation is only through one door.
Sensitive to the financial difficulties of the country in general, and of higher education institutions in particular, Gonçalo Leite Velho warns, however, that it is necessary to return public health to the top of the priorities, something that he believes is not happening .
