The official agenda of the meeting indicates that the monitoring of the tripartite agreement on salary enhancement and economic growth for 2025-2028 is among the topics to be discussed.
The meeting will take place at the headquarters of the Economic and Social Council (CES), at the Laranjeiras Palace in Lisbon, starting at 3:00 PM.
As usual, it will be presided over by the Minister of Labor, Solidarity, and Social Security.
This will be the first social dialogue meeting after the government presented a draft proposal for labor law reform on July 24, which aims to revise “over a hundred” articles of the Labor Code.
Since then, bilateral meetings between the government and social partners have been ongoing, as confirmed by an official source from the Ministry of Labor.
The proposed changes, under the name “Trabalho XXI,” cover areas from parenthood (with changes in parental leave, breastfeeding, and gestational mourning) to flexible working, company training, or the trial period of employment contracts, and also foresee an expansion of sectors included in minimum service requirements in the event of a strike.
In an initial analysis at the time of the draft proposal’s presentation, business confederations praised the proposal, stating it “is a good basis for negotiation.”
However, trade unions have been quite critical, claiming that the proposal “weakens worker rights” and have even requested a meeting with the President of the Republic on the matter.
Both CGTP and UGT are scheduled to meet with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on Friday, with the CGTP meeting planned for 3:00 PM and the UGT meeting for 4:00 PM.
On Tuesday, in statements to Lusa, the general secretary of CGTP said there are “two or three measures” in the government’s draft labor law revision that are unconstitutional and criticized the Head of State’s “silence.”
CGTP has called for protests on September 20 in Lisbon and Porto against the changes to labor law, with additional demonstrations organized by a group of citizens under the banner “Nothing silences us when the dignity of our children depends on our strength” planned for September 13.
