AIMA Staff Stop Work Nationwide on Tuesday, Pressing the Government on Pay, a Career of Their Own and Who Runs the Agency

Staff at the Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo (Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum, AIMA) stop work for 24 hours on Tuesday 6 October in a national strike called by the Sindicato dos Técnicos de Migração (Migration Technicians' Union, STM). The union wants a career of its own for migration staff, a pay supplement matching the one proposed for police at the borders, permanent contracts for the agency's cultural mediators and, above all, an answer from the government on who is running AIMA.

The strike covers every person working at AIMA, whatever their contract, career or workplace, so any office in the country can be affected. It follows a four-day stoppage by the same union in June.

Who is striking, and why now

The STM called the strike on 24 September, as its president, Manuela Niza Ribeiro, confirmed to the Lusa news agency in a report carried by Observador. The trigger was a proposal from the Ministério da Administração Interna (Ministry of Internal Administration, MAI) on 17 September to pay a supplement to Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP) officers and Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR) personnel who work in border control, on the grounds that the job is specialised.

The union says the ministry's reasoning is exactly the case it has been making for AIMA staff. After the ministry's proposal it asked for a meeting with the Secretary of State who oversees AIMA and, according to Ms Niza Ribeiro, received no reply. "As soon as that MAI question came up, we asked for a hearing. They did not even answer us," she told Lusa.

The demands, as set out in the union's statement reported by ECO on Monday, are:

• a dedicated technical career for migration staff;
• a pay supplement equivalent to the one for the GNR and PSP;
• an end to precarious contracts for AIMA's cultural mediators, who the union says carry a significant share of the agency's frontline work but are still kept out of competitions for permanent posts ("the State itself is promoting precarious work," the STM says);
• clarity on the agency's leadership.

That last point has become the headline grievance. The STM says it is not clear whether AIMA's president, Pedro Portugal Gaspar, is still in post, and that only two members of the original Conselho Diretivo (Executive Board) remain. It wants the board renewed in full rather than seat by seat. Observador reported in September that Mr Portugal Gaspar was in the running for a seat on the board of the Autoridade da Concorrência (Competition Authority).

"We asked for a meeting and to this day there has been no answer," Ms Niza Ribeiro said in the statement. "If it is not possible to meet the Secretary of State, we will try to reach the Minister and, if necessary, the Prime Minister." In September she told Lusa the strike would be suspended "immediately" if the government set out concrete solutions with a deadline. Nothing published by Monday night suggested that had happened.

What it means if you have an AIMA appointment on Tuesday

AIMA had published no notice about the strike on its website by late Monday, and we found no minimum-services arrangement for the day. There is no official word yet on which offices will open or how many staff will join, so the safest course is to turn up for a booked appointment as planned and bring your confirmation.

The June strike is the nearest guide, and the two sides told different stories about it. On the first day, AIMA said fewer than 3 percent of staff had joined, that every office was open and that no appointments had to be rescheduled, according to RTP. By the last day, Ms Niza Ribeiro told Lusa that about 1,100 workers were covered, that turnout averaged 48 to 50 percent, and that offices across the country had closed their information desks while staff kept seeing people with appointments. "Some of our users have waited more than two years for an appointment," she said, explaining why strikers chose not to turn them away.

Walk-in service is the most exposed. During a separate strike by cultural mediators on 30 March, Observador found that nobody without an appointment was seen at AIMA's office in central Lisbon, including people who had queued overnight, while booked appointments went ahead.

AIMA's contact centre is listed on its website as (+351) 217 115 000, Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 20:00, and the call is charged at your operator's rates. The site's online contact form was showing as temporarily unavailable on Monday.

Background

The STM held a four-day strike on 1, 2, 3 and 5 June, over a career path, outsourcing and staff shortages. On its first day the Assistant Secretary of State for the Presidency and Immigration, Rui Armindo Freitas, said he understood some of the workers' complaints but rejected a special career, saying AIMA had an organised service and was working within that framework. The union said at the end of that strike that it had won some progress and would return to protest if promises were not kept.

Staffing remains the wider dispute. In September AIMA put its two-year staffing gain at 17 percent, while the union countered with a 19 percent exit rate, arguing that the real balance was negative.