“Sindepor will not give up what is a legitimate right … the right to strike,” Carlos Ramalho, a union official, told Lusa News Agency. “We shall maintain our position and tell nurses that we have to stay on strike.”


Ramalho added that “if nurses are notified in writing by the boards of directors [of hospitals] … that they have to give up this right and are obliged to work, they will work, but they will fill out a document saying that they are being coerced and forced to work and to abdicate … the right to strike.”


If nurses are obliged to work, he said, “we will work, under protest, and present a criminal complaint against those who are coercing and threatening us illegitimately,” Ramalho said, stressing that the written opinion released earlier in the day by the office of Portugal’s attorney-general “only makes official what is a position [on the part of the] government” and not a court decision.