“This week we were faced with yet another attempt by this government to increasingly diminish the power and strength of a strike,” said the union structure in a note to its members.
The union pointed out that “it is not the first time that the prime minister, or other members of the executive,” has presented “some instances to devalue mechanisms enshrined in the law that aim to defend workers’ struggle against injustices, discrimination or simply to demand better and fair working conditions.”
The prime minister reiterated this week the intention, together with social partners, to “revisit labor legislation,” including the strike law, with the aim of enshrining minimum services that ensure “greater proportionality” between rights.
“We intend for this change to enshrine that, on all occasions, there are minimum services that do not compromise the balance between the exercise of the right to strike and the exercise of the other rights of other workers,” stated Luís Montenegro, at the end of the meeting of the Permanent Commission for Social Concertation.
In the note to members, SNPVAC lamented that in recent years, “there has been an abuse of what constitutes minimum services,” emphasizing that it is “impossible to forget the minimum services attributed to a private company, which performs no public service, during the 2018 strike of Ryanair cabin crew.”
Addressing Luís Montenegro, the union said that “the concept of minimum services is clear,” advising the prime minister to “not try to find ways to distort a very simple concept,” namely, “services intended for meeting essential social needs.”
The union structure also reminded the “prime minister, members of the XXV Constitutional Government, and SNPVAC members that the leadership already moved forward, in September 2024, with an action against the abusive use of minimum services decreed for easyJet flights in Funchal and Faro during the strike.”
“At the same time, we remind that the SNPVAC Directorate has already sent an exhibition to the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, on 05/12/2024, about the reduction of the strike notice period,” highlighted the union, noting that “the required days to advance with a strike notice are manifestly greater than those in other European countries.”
SNPVAC promised to remain “attentive to all these movements to change labor legislation,” asserting that it will “always do everything in its power to prevent any changes that benefit economic interests and wage dumping.”
“Just as a strike cannot be used irresponsibly, the act of striking must not be distorted and devalued,” it emphasized.
