Employees of Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), already facing consistent setbacks concerning their rights, may suffer significant penalties if the proposed changes to labor laws are not rejected, asserts the Stec in a statement.
The statement continues: “In this context, the Stec has decided to announce a strike notice for CGD Group companies, aligning with the general strike on December 11, called by the two labor unions – CGTP-IN and UGT – a move not seen since 2013.”
The union highlights several punitive measures affecting CGD employees, including “the increase in abusive, disproportionate, and unlawful disciplinary sanctions, allowing the company to refuse reinstating a worker even when dismissal is declared unlawful by court,” “the facilitation of the expiration of collective agreements, risking the loss of rights enshrined in the Company Agreement,” and “the encouragement of outsourcing instead of hiring workers.”
It also mentions “the deregulation of working hours via individual time banks,” “the creation of new hindrances to accessing telework for parents with children up to eight years old,” “the extension of fixed-term contract periods, worsening job insecurity,” and “the weakening of parental rights, particularly in accessing flexible hours.”
According to Stec, CGD workers have “additional reasons” to join the general strike as the current Government “continues to ignore their rightful claim regarding the accounting of the years 2013 to 2016 – despite allowing other workers in the State Business Sector and Public Administration to recover their full service time.”
“This strike is also an opportunity to demand the Government to end this clear injustice and discrimination,” it emphasizes.
The union warns that the Government’s proposed changes “shatter the existing labor rules in the country,” and although they are “ironically presented as a modern advance in labor laws,” their goal is “to severely weaken workers’ rights.”
“A clear reading leaves no doubt – the Government aims to ‘bring workers to their knees,’ stripping them of basic rights and further weakening them against employers,” it claims.
For Stec, “in the 21st century, the Government intends to set labor relations back to levels from the industrial revolution era, presenting a labor package that, even partially implemented, would represent a massive setback in workers’ rights and fail to address existing problems.”
“Faced with this blatant and excessive attack on the labor, personal, and family rights of workers, which assaults fundamental rights, and considering the social insensitivity these measures involve, CGD workers can only align with the stance adopted by STEC and join the general strike,” it argues, defending that this “is the necessary response.”
The CGTP and UGT have called for a general strike on December 11 in response to the Government’s draft labor law reform, marking the first joint strike by these two trade unions since June 2013, during the ‘troika’ intervention in Portugal.
