The Liberal Initiative (IL) party stresses that Portugal is currently facing a “profound demographic crisis” and it would be “expected for the state to promote conditions of trust, flexibility, and respect for those who choose to combine work with parenthood”.
“Unfortunately, the government responds in the wrong direction: it cuts rights, increases bureaucracy, and makes life difficult for those who work and care for their family,” the IL accuses.
Among the labor law changes proposed by the government, the IL notes that the government plans to “limit the right to leave for children up to two years old, requiring medical certificates from the first day and with semi-annual renewals”.
“It eliminates this right for mothers with contracts of less than four hours daily; revokes the three paid days of gestational mourning, directing parents to unpaid leave; and ends the automatic right to flexible hours for families with children up to 12, subjecting it to employer approval,” the text states.
According to IL, “these measures are based on a logic of generalized distrust and bureaucratic control, which imposes a collective punishment on all families”.
“It is an outdated view of the state’s role in the lives of citizens, a view that considers exceptions more important than the rule and imposes indiscriminate barriers to prevent potential abuses,” the party accuses.
IL deems it “unacceptable to legislate against everyone based on the behavior of a few” and claims that the government, “unable to monitor potential abuses by a small minority, decides to apply a widespread punishment to all mothers”.
“In its inability to seriously reform the Labor Code, the government decides to invest in communication maneuvers and attacks those who are most vulnerable,” they criticize.
The party claims to have a “different vision” on the matter, stating that it wants a “more free, adaptable, and fair Labor Code” that includes “the strengthening of parental rights exercised responsibly, without absurd administrative obstacles”.
In the changes to the Labor Code they advocate, IL also wants to allow “real contractual freedom, with work models adjusted to people’s lives and the reality of companies” and that “recognizes and values all legitimate forms of working, including independent, remote, or project-based work”.
“If we want to reverse the demographic trend, retain talent, and create a country worth living and investing in, we need to free up time, restore dignity to family choices, and trust citizens. Portugal doesn’t need more control. It needs more freedom,” IL argues.
In an interview this weekend with TSF and Jornal de Notícias, the Minister of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, stated that there are abuses by some mothers in using the right to leave for breastfeeding and found it difficult to understand why children over two need to be breastfed during working hours.
The draft labor legislation reform, which the government claims involves reviewing “more than a hundred articles of the Labor Code”, has already been presented to social partners and will be negotiated within the framework of Social Concertation.
