Newly-founded migrations agency calls overtime strike

Lisbon: AIMA, the agency for integration, migration and asylum, created out of the extinction of SEF (the former borders and aliens service) has been labouring under intense pressure since its inception – and its personnel, members of FNSTFPS, the national federation of trade union workers in public and social functions, have now called a strike on overtime until the end of the year.

“What led us to take this decision are the problems that have been happening at AIMA since it began operating, which are very much linked to a lack of staff,” Artur Cerqueira, head of the FNSTFPS, told Lusa today.

“There is a huge shortage of staff” and the new mission structure for migration, announced in July by the government to resolve pending cases, is “hiring without transparency“, while “the lack of resources at AIMA remains unresolved”, he explained.

FNSTFPS is also calling for the regularisation of the contractual situation of socio-cultural mediators, hired by NGOs and IPSS (social solidarity institute) and on secondment to AIMA.

“We demand integration of all mediators who are doing permanent work,” because the current situation “constitutes illegal contract labour,” said Cerqueira.

He insists that AIMA workers are “being pressurised to work overtime” and “a civil servant cannot refuse to work overtime…”

That’s why the strike notice has a limit between August 22 and December 31. “From now on, each worker can decide whether or not to work this overtime”, the union leader explains.

Among FNSTFPS demands underpinning the strike notice, “several problems at AIMA are mentioned, including the absence of internal regulations, a lack of internal communication, “undersized teams, which translate into work overload and high levels of stress and anxiety”.

According to the document, many workers “have already exceeded the legal limit for overtime work in the civil service ( 150 hours per year), but “continue to work overtime without being paid.

“The Federation believes that the situation we have reached is the result of a series of misguided policies by various governments” (the majority of which have been Socialist).

“The important and urgent thing is for the government to assume its responsibilities and for all measures to be taken as a matter of urgency,” putting an “end to the trampling of workers’ and citizens’ rights,” says the union.

At the end of July, the government appointed Pedro Portugal Gaspar to AIMA’s board, transferring the organisation’s then president, Goes Pinheiro, to the new mission structure for migration.

This new ‘Mission Structure for the Recovery of Pending Immigrant Cases’, provided for in the Migration Action Plan, has the mission of “resolving the history of more than 400,000 cases for regularisation accumulated over the last few years,” the executive said.

The structure is to have up to 100 specialists, 150 technical assistants and 50 operational assistants.

As for what is left of AIMA, the government promised a “change of direction”, seeking to “implement measures advocated in the Migration Action Plan presented at the beginning of June”.

Away from these ideals and pledges, queues outside AIMA offices in inner city areas remain a major embarrassment, with incidents of frustrated migrants ‘invading premises’, demanding attention, becoming almost regular events.

And, according to TSF radio, this overtime ban will only serve to delay ‘even further’ resolution of the massive backlog of cases for ‘regularisation’ of foreigners who want to live in Portugal.