The salary of 1,571 workers at Hospital de Braga will grow as of November, due to the adherence to collective labor agreements (ACT), today signed by the institution with the different union structures.
According to a hospital source, 805 general care professionals, 657 nurses, 99 senior diagnostic and therapeutic technicians and 10 pharmacists are involved.
The unions had been demanding, for more than a year, the signing of the ACT to end what they classified as “unacceptable discrimination” in the wages of those workers.
The claim started since, on September 1, 2019, the management of Hospital de Braga moved from Grupo Mello Saúde to the public sphere.
Without adhering to the ACTs, those 1,571 professionals kept their salaries, which caused inequality with others who provided exactly the same service.
According to the chairman of the hospital’s Board of Directors, João Porfírio Oliveira, those professionals were suffering, on average, in values between 100 and 200 euros.
“The Board of Directors has worked hard, from the beginning, in this matter, to ensure greater equity among professionals,” he said, at the signing ceremony of the agreement with the unions.
The official said that retroactive payments will not be paid, but stressed that salary updates will take place with the November salary, when the Christmas allowance is paid.
“It is, therefore, doubly important to sign the ACT membership now,” he said.
According to João Porfírio Oliveira, the agreement now reached will also contribute to increase “social peace” in the hospital and, consequently, to a faster recovery from the delays caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
The Secretary of State for Health, António Lacerda Sales, admitted that this process “was not always easy”, having known “advances, setbacks and approaches”, but he welcomed the outcome.
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