The spokesperson for Livre, Rui Tavares, advocated on Saturday that the national minimum wage in Portugal should be “at least above one thousand euros,” arguing for a “minimum parity” with the Spanish minimum wage.
Speaking to journalists in Lisbon on the sidelines of the national demonstration called by the CGTP, Rui Tavares emphasized that “the minimum wage should be higher,” recalling that “historically, it was introduced simultaneously in Portugal and Spain.”
“The Portuguese minimum wage was always 80% of the Spanish minimum wage until about ten years ago, when it started to lag. Today, it stands at 70% of the Spanish level,” he noted.
He further explained, “If we are a foreign investor looking at the Iberian economy, which is highly interconnected, what will we think? For high value-added, more specialized, complex, and sophisticated work that deserves higher wages, the sign from the Spanish economy is that the minimum threshold is higher. For low wages, in a less specialized economy where it is easier to exploit low-wage workers, I would choose Portugal.”
According to Rui Tavares, this situation has been “a calamity that befell our country” due to the actions of “governments of various political colors.”
“What Livre advocates is a constant metric for the minimum wage and that among other criteria, a fundamental one should be a minimum parity with the Spanish minimum wage, because it is the neighboring economy and that is where we could lose investment,” he stated.
For the Livre spokesperson, this “means having minimum wages above one thousand euros to keep up with at least the Spanish minimum wage.”
Workers across the nation are demonstrating today in Lisbon, Porto, and Coimbra in an action called by the CGTP to demand salary and pension increases.
In Lisbon, the gathering began at 3:00 PM at Príncipe Real and concludes at Cais do Sodré.
