Portugal's biggest teachers' union takes its recruitment fight to the ombudsman
Cabinet approved the new teacher recruitment regime on 30 July, a week before the final negotiation meeting set for 6 August. Fenprof says that broke public-sector bargaining law, and the President has since signed it. The ombudsman met the union on 29 October.
Fenprof, Portugal’s largest teachers’ union federation, has filed a complaint with the Provedora de Justiça, the national ombudsman, over how the Government negotiated the new system for recruiting and placing state-school teachers. Its statement of 31 October also takes aim at someone who was not part of the August row: the President, who has since signed the decree into law without answering the union’s objections.
A Fenprof delegation was received at the ombudsman’s office on Thursday 29 October, in a meeting attended by the ombudsman herself, Luísa Neto.
The complaint, in three dates
This is about process rather than substance (though the union dislikes the substance too). Its timeline:
- on 27 July, Fenprof asked for “supplementary negotiation”, the final round public-sector law allows before a decree is adopted;
- on 30 July, the Council of Ministers approved the decree;
- on 6 August, the supplementary meeting took place, with the text already approved and the minister absent.
The unions say that turned the last-chance round into theatre. Fenprof was already making this argument in August. What is new is that the decree is now law, signed alongside two others on the science and innovation system and inclusive education, and that the dispute has moved from press releases to a state body.
What the ombudsman can actually do
Not much in the way of force. The Provedora cannot strike down a decree or order the Government to do anything. Her main tool is a recommendation: under article 38 of the ombudsman’s statute the body concerned has 60 days to say whether it accepts it, and must give reasons if it does not. The weight is mostly political.
That is why Fenprof says it will also brief parliament, which the Constitution gives the job of scrutinising the Government.
Why it matters beyond this one decree
The regime in question is the one that creates two national hiring rounds, one annual and one permanently open, from the 2027/28 school year. But the union’s eye is on what comes next: the rewrite of the teachers’ career statute, which is already under way. Fenprof says it will not accept that process being run with decisions taken before talks end.
We could find no public response to the complaint from the Education Ministry at the time of writing. At the same Thursday meeting, the union also followed up an earlier complaint about pay for teachers who marked national exams, and is waiting on both.
Illustration: Tugadaily
