350,000 people are about to walk off the job

The people who keep public services running have set a date to down tools. It's Saturday, 5 September. Thirty-two degrees. Air quality: 68 (Moderate), with Saharan dust in the air. Here's what you need to know.

🗞️ 350,000 PUBLIC WORKERS CALL A STRIKE FOR 2 OCTOBER

Three public-sector unions have called a strike for 2 October, covering around 350,000 workers in what are known as "general careers" across central, local and regional public administration. These are, in the unions' words, the lowest-paid people in the public workforce, and the dispute is about pay.

The strike is being organised jointly by three CGTP-affiliated structures: the National Federation of Unions of Public and Social Service Workers, the union for local and regional administration workers known as STAL, and the union for Lisbon city council workers, STML. CGTP is the larger of Portugal's two main trade union confederations.

The category at the heart of this covers the workers you deal with when you interact with the state: administrative assistants, operational staff, the people who keep Social Security offices, schools, hospitals and municipal services running day to day. Union leader Joaquim Ribeiro said many of them earn close to the national minimum wage, and that their pay scale has been "compressed" to the point where operational assistants have effectively been overtaken by minimum-wage rises. He accused the government of "always leaving the workers in general careers for last."

This is not a full nationwide general strike of the kind that shut the country down last December, when the two big confederations, CGTP and UGT, brought transport, schools and flights to a halt over the government's labour reforms. This is a more targeted public-administration action. But it is significant, both for its scale and for what it signals about mounting labour tension under a minority government already dealing with a no-confidence motion and open friction with the party that props it up.

For anyone living in Lisbon, the practical impact will depend on how widely the strike is observed, but the unions are bracing for a big turnout, warning of thousands of public services and schools closed and disruption to rubbish collection. A demonstration is planned in Lisbon at 11am on the day. The timing is deliberate: it lands just before the government must submit its 2027 State Budget to parliament by 10 October, and the unions want to apply maximum pressure before then. If you have official business on 2 October, plan around it.

Bottom line: 350,000 of the lowest-paid public workers have set a strike date and a march through Lisbon, over pay, and it lands in the middle of a difficult stretch for the government. It is not a general strike, but it is a warning shot.

⚡ QUICK HITS

A North African dust cloud is bringing poor air quality to much of Portugal this weekend. The Directorate-General of Health (DGS) has warned that an air mass carrying desert dust is affecting most of the mainland, especially the centre and south, on Friday and Saturday. The dust raises levels of PM10, tiny inhalable particles that can aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. Vulnerable groups, children, older people, and anyone with asthma or heart conditions, are advised to stay indoors where possible and keep windows closed. Everyone else should avoid prolonged outdoor exertion. Conditions are expected to improve after Saturday.

Parts of Portugal will lose power on Sunday for scheduled works. E-REDES, the electricity distribution operator, has planned interruptions on 6 September affecting around 2,000 customers. The parish of Quinta do Anjo in Palmela will be cut from 5am to 10am, Santo Isidoro in Mafra from 6am to 11:30am, the longest of the day, and Vila Nova de Milfontes from 7am to 11am. The cuts are targeted to specific streets rather than whole areas, so being in one of those parishes does not necessarily mean you are affected. Worth checking if your address is included as part oft he scheduled-interruptions.

A young French man has been found alive after 11 days missing in Lisbon. The 22-year-old, who had been travelling and was reported missing in late August, was located safe this week after an appeal that circulated widely on social media and among the city's French community. Police confirmed he had been found and was in good health. After a run of heavy news, a story that ends with someone found safe is a welcome one.

Kiklos Learning — Read the Great Books, Properly, With Others

"A classic," Mark Twain said, "is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read." Kiklos exists to close that gap. "Circle" in Greek, it is a Lisbon-based community that reads and discusses the foundational texts of world literature, philosophy and politics together, in English: closely, slowly, and in good company, rather than alone and half-distracted.

Its Odyssey Program for 2026/2027 is now open for enrolment. Over nine months, from 3 October to 26 June, the group reads Homer's Odyssey as a thread running through the entire year, setting sail from Lisbon's own ancient Olisippo with Odysseus and venturing out into other stories of travel, exile, heroism and the search for home. The surrounding readings change every three months, so the Odyssey stays constant while you move across very different eras, cultures and traditions, and discover how many ways there are to tell the story of a journey.

The programme is led by Ekin Atiyas, a historian with a doctorate from Harvard and a research role at NOVA University Lisbon, so the discussion is genuinely guided rather than left to drift. It runs in three three-month capsules, paid for one at a time as you go, on Saturday mornings from 10am to midday in Lisbon. It is open to serious readers aged 14 and up.

If you have been looking for a way to step back from the noise, rebuild your attention span, and think deeply about something worth the effort, this is it.

Early bird offer ends 20 September.

→ Find out more and enrol at kikloslearning.org

We only partner with businesses we think genuinely help our community. If this is useful to you, or if you know someone who has been meaning to read the classics properly, every click and every share goes a long way to keeping this newsletter free every morning.

🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

HONUA (BAIXA)

Honua is a small brunch spot on Rua dos Fanqueiros in Baixa, just off Praça da Figueira, and it has built a devoted following on the strength of doing breakfast really, really well. The room has a light, tropical, almost surfer feel, bright and relaxed, and it is genuinely small, which is part of the charm and the reason for the weekend queue.

The food looks as good as it tastes, so expect the table next to you to be photographing their plates before they touch them. The menu is the full modern brunch spread: crepes and pancakes, açaí bowls, avocado toast, eggs done several ways, and a papaya bowl filled with Greek yoghurt, fruit and granola that regulars come back for. There are proper cocktails too, mimosas included, if brunch for you means a drink alongside the coffee. The Portuguese side shows up in dishes like the tomatada, a tomato-and-egg dish reviewers keep singling out. A meal runs around €10 to €15 a head.

None of this is a fluke: Honua holds a perfect five-star rating across more than 900 reviews, which for a brunch spot in a city full of them is no small thing, and the service gets singled out as often as the food. It is open daily, 8:30am to 4:30pm.

→ Find them here ←

Insider tip: go early or go late. The queue builds through the middle of the morning at weekends, so either get there close to opening or hold off until the mid-afternoon lull, when you will walk straight in.

📅 WHAT'S ON

See you tomorrow morning.

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