After the negotiation period ended on Tuesday without an agreement between Fenprof and the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation, the federation requested supplementary negotiation and in the new proposal sent today it is closer to the guardianship in several aspects, but it does not drop the main claim that was left out in the agreements signed with other union structures.

"To teachers who cannot recover all or part of the service time they lost in the two freezing periods (...) a specific calculation or recalculation regime of the respective retirement pension will be applied", the document states.

Fenprof refers to teachers who are at the top of their career or who are going to retire, about 25,400 according to their estimates, and who are left out because the terms defined by the guardianship establish that the recovery of service time only serves for progression purposes.

"It would be hypocritical to make an agreement today and then go and ask for supplementary negotiation, or go to the Assembly of the Republic to ask for rectification to consider the colleagues who are excluded", justified, on Tuesday, the secretary-general of Fenprof, Mário Nogueira.

In addition to this issue, Fenprof proposes that teachers who used time from the 1,018 days recovered in 2019 to obtain a place in the 5th or 7th echelons can recover this time again.

It also includes teachers integrated in the staff of the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores who have already recovered some service time under the regimes created by the regional governments, but not all of it because they also worked on the mainland during the freezing periods.

Fenprof, which defended the return of the six years, six months and 23 days to an annual average of 33% over three years, now accepts the deadlines set by the Government, which stipulate the accounting at an annual average of 25% between 2024 and 2027.

The proposal presented by the guardianship in the last negotiation meeting, on Tuesday, was accepted by seven of the 12 teachers' union organisations: National Federation of Education (FNE), National Federation of Teaching and Research (Fenei), Independent Union of Teachers and Educators (SIPE), Portuguese Federation of Education, Teaching, Culture and Research Professionals (Fepeci), National Union of Teachers Graduated by Polytechnics and Universities (Spliu), National Union of Graduated Teachers (SNPL) and Union of Educators and Teachers of Basic Education (Sippeb).

Regarding Fenprof, Minister Fernando Alexandre had stated, even before they met, in statements to journalists, that the federation led by Mário Nogueira "was never part of the solution" and said he sometimes doubted that education and teachers were his "great concern".

Read Also: Fenprof will ask for (new) negotiation on the recovery of service time (Portuguese version)