The Union of Tax Workers (STI) is preparing protest actions, including potential strikes in 2026, to prompt the government to negotiate labor and salary demands, revealed the union’s president today.
The decision to toughen the union’s stance was discussed today during an online plenary session, attended by over 2,000 employees of the Tax and Customs Authority (AT), said STI President Gonçalo Rodrigues after the meeting.
“We want the government to open a negotiation table. We always prefer to negotiate and work on solutions rather than protest, [but] we will gradually toughen our stance,” he warned.
The meeting took place a day after the general strike called by CGTP and UGT, aiming to gather employees’ feedback on future steps to push the government, led by Luís Montenegro, to address the tax workers’ demands.
Rodrigues stated that the STI leadership sought workers’ opinions on whether to “immediately advance with strike actions or to gradually toughen their stance to bring the government to the negotiating table.”
Faced with two options, “most people considered that [the union should] try to find dialogue points while simultaneously organizing some forms of protest,” he said.
The STI leader mentioned potential demonstrations, strikes against using personal vehicles, and partial stoppages that could impact operations, like the plenary session today, which temporarily closed dozens of tax offices nationwide from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm, disrupting public service during the meeting.
“There are many issues we can implement before a strike. But a strike, of course, is always on the table,” he emphasized, explaining that until then, “partial strikes in specific AT areas or regions” remain an option.
Rodrigues noted that “the STI National Directorate already has a mandate from the General Council to schedule strikes lasting more than five days.”
The aim of the protests, he said, is for the government to “perhaps within the next two to three months, if not sooner, keep its word” and negotiate.
Rodrigues asserts that the union seeks a response to the “enormous staff shortage [in the tax department]” and the “significant aging of AT’s workforce.”
He also advocates for changes in “how AT recruits people, without training and without the specific tax and customs course, overburdening colleagues who are working while also trying to teach,” resolving the “serious problem of material shortage” and the “completely obsolete and outdated equipment” (such as computers), and regulating the special career regime for tax and customs management and inspection.
On this last point, the workers’ representative recalls that the 2019 decree-law establishing this regime suggests a permanent evaluation model for professionals in special inspection, management, and auditing careers, which has yet to be implemented. The union argues this system should accelerate career progression.
The STI demands the opening of a negotiation table to discuss these claims.
“Our goal is (…) to try to make the government realize that confrontation is the worst path. But if the government’s choice is confrontation, we have no alternative,” warns Gonçalo Rodrigues.
