Civil servants, protesting their loss of holiday and Christmas bonuses, will demonstrate in the Portuguese capital Friday, 22 June, planning to take their grievances to the Constitutional Court and the prime minister’s office.

Union leader Ana Avoila estimated, in comments to news agency Lusa, that the centre-right government was saving some €900m through the suspension or partial cut of holiday bonuses which public employees would normally have begun receiving last Wednesday.

Avoila said about 367,000 of the sector’s nearly 640,000 employees, those earning more than €1,100 monthly, had seen their entire holiday bonus disappear under the bailout austerity programme.

“We want to ask the government what it plans to do with the €900m saved”, she said. “Will it create jobs, increase pensions, increase family subsidies?”

Avoila said that in total public workers would lose some €1.625bn in suspended holiday and Christmas bonuses this year.

The afternoon demonstration was scheduled to begin at Príncipe Real Square, before marching to the Constitutional Court and on to Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho’s official residence, where protest petitions would be delivered.

(Photograph: Jorge Firmino)