School Support Staff Strike Across Portugal Today With No Minimum Service: How to Check Your Child's School, and Whether You Can Miss Work

Non-teaching staff in Portugal's state schools are on a 24-hour national strike today, Monday 19 October 2026, from midnight to midnight. The call from the education union SINAPE (Sindicato Nacional dos Profissionais da Educação) covers the school assistants who open the gates, supervise playgrounds and run canteens, the office staff, and the specialist and senior technicians such as psychologists and social workers. Several school groups also name a second union, SMTO, as a co-sponsor.

No minimum service has been set, so any school may open normally, partly or not at all. Nobody will know until the gates are due to open.

What the strike notice says

The notice SINAPE filed (dated 21 September, in Portuguese only) calls a "greve nacional" of assistentes operacionais, assistentes técnicos, técnicos especializados and técnicos superiores. It covers everyone in those jobs who works "em serviços públicos ou de natureza social em todo o território nacional" (in public or social services anywhere in the country). It went to the governments of the Azores and Madeira and to the associations of municipalities and parishes, which employ much of this staff since school support work passed to local councils.

Three points in it matter for families:

• Staff do not have to say in advance whether they will strike. The notice says workers who join "não terão de comunicar previamente a qualquer entidade a sua decisão". A head teacher cannot know the night before how many assistants will turn up.
• There are no minimum services. The union states there is "não há necessidade, nem lugar" for them, so nothing obliges a school to stay open.
• The head teacher is responsible for safety. The director of each school group answers for the building and everyone in it, which is why a school with too few assistants to supervise pupils will usually keep its doors shut.

The union's grievances are pay close to the national minimum wage, careers whose top step takes "64, 72 ou 88 anos de serviço" (64, 72 or 88 years of service) to reach, the SIADAP staff appraisal system, staffing ratios it says leave schools short, and specialist technicians kept on precarious contracts.

How to find out whether your child's school is open

Schools have been posting the notice on their own websites since last week, and the advice is the same everywhere: check at the start of the school day before you leave your child. The Parede school group in Cascais and the Poeta Joaquim Serra group in Montijo ask parents to check "no início do horário letivo" whether their schools are working. The Cego do Maio group in Póvoa de Varzim says pupils may only go in once normal running is assured. The AEVP group asks parents not to leave children without first making sure the school can operate safely, and reminds them that striking workers may not be replaced. The Lousã group says it will tell families on the day and warns that its school offices may also be closed.

In practice:

• Look at your school group's website and the messages it sends parents first thing in the morning.
• Go with your child to the gate rather than dropping them off, and wait until a member of staff confirms that the school is taking pupils.
• Ask about lunch: a school can open for lessons but run without its canteen, after-school care (CAF or AAAF) or the school bus.
• If the school is shut, ask for a written note or keep a copy of the school's online notice. You may need it for your employer.

Public jardins de infância (pre-schools) belong to the same school groups and depend on the same assistants, so they can close too. Because the notice also reaches "serviços de natureza social", some other childcare services may be short-staffed.

Can you miss work if the school closes?

There is no specific rule in Portugal's Labour Code for a school closed by a strike, so the answer depends on how the general rules apply to your case.

Article 249 of the Código do Trabalho (Labour Code) lists the absences that count as justified. Two items are relevant:

• Point 2(d) covers being unable to work "devido a facto não imputável ao trabalhador" (because of something the worker is not responsible for). A reading put forward in the Portuguese press in recent days is that a young child with nowhere to go when the school shuts falls under this. That is an interpretation: the law does not mention strikes or school closures, and an employer may take a different view.
• Point 2(e) covers urgent care for a child, but only on the terms of article 49, which is about illness or accident. It does not cover a closed school.

Under article 255, a justified absence does not cost the worker pay or other rights, except in the cases that article lists (such as sick leave paid by Social Security). Point 2(d) is not one of the exceptions, so if your absence is accepted under it, the Code gives no ground for docking the day's pay.

Three practical steps protect you:

1. Tell your employer as soon as you know. Article 253 requires notice of an absence, with the reason, as soon as possible when it could not be foreseen five days ahead. An absence that is not reported counts as unjustified.
2. Keep the proof. Under article 254, an employer can ask for evidence within 15 days. The school's note or its published notice is the obvious evidence.
3. Look for an agreed alternative first. Working from home, swapping a shift or taking a day of holiday by agreement avoids the argument altogether. An absence the employer authorises is also justified under point 2(k), but article 255 allows the employer to deduct the pay for it.

If your employer treats the day as unjustified and you disagree, you can raise it with the ACT (Autoridade para as Condições do Trabalho, the labour inspectorate) through its website.

Second strike in less than three weeks

School support staff were already out on 2 October, in a public-sector strike that also put Social Security counters and bin rounds at risk. Today's walkout is narrower and comes from a different union, but parents face the same morning lottery. Turnout and the number of closed schools will only be known during the day.