“What lies ahead for workers and the country are moments, years, and months of great uncertainty, of many difficulties, and a policy that will continue to align with the interests of companies and capital, never responding to the interests of workers,” said Tiago Oliveira today outside Preh Portugal in Trofa (Porto district), where workers are on strike.
The union leader urged “the workers at home” to question when they heard “this Government blame the companies for low wages,” “the reliance on precarious work,” or “the complete deregulation of work hours.”
“At no moment did you hear this. But, conversely, when the worker fights and demands better wages, first we are told to respond by increasing productivity. When the worker demands a stable work contract that allows for a different perspective, first we must meet the needs of companies and the economy,” he illustrated.
Tiago Oliveira stressed that “companies are always prioritized over workers.”
“A country can only be considered first-world when workers are put first,” he argued, recalling that in the “last 15 or 20 years of governance, workers have always been told to tighten their belts to create conditions to increase wages.”
Oliveira noted that conversely, “the policies that have been followed remain unchanged” and “wages are low, life becomes increasingly deregulated, and the cost of living rises.”
“That rhetoric which capital continues to use, upheld by governments defending capital, is completely dismantled,” he asserted, urging workers to believe “that another future is possible” and not to be “deceived by those who exploit the workers’ discontent to capitalize on it, yet ultimately allow the same policies to persist.”
On creating a State Reform Ministry, Oliveira stated it is necessary to “understand the context, objective, proposals,” but emphasized that policies depend not “on the actor or actress,” but on who writes the script.
“What the PSD and CDS have accustomed us to over all the years leading the country has been the degradation of the living conditions of workers,” he stressed.
The second Government led by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro will have 16 ministries, one less than the previous, retaining thirteen of the 17 ministers from the outgoing executive.
New to the executive are Maria Lúcia Amaral, until now the Ombudsman, as Minister of Internal Administration; Gonçalo Matias, president of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, as the new Minister for State Reform; and Carlos Abreu Amorim, who moves from Secretary of State to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs.
Departures include Pedro Duarte (Parliamentary Affairs), Margarida Blasco (Internal Administration), Pedro Reis (Economy), and Dalila Rodrigues (Culture).
Margarida Balseiro Lopes, Minister of Youth and Modernization, now holds the portfolio for Culture, Youth, and Sports.
