“We inform you that, due to the strike, service disruption and closure of Metro stations are anticipated from 6:30 AM on December 11 until 1:00 AM on December 12. Services will be normalized from 6:30 AM on December 12,” reads a note posted on the company’s website.
The CGTP and UGT have called for a general strike on December 11 in response to the government’s draft labor law reform.
Unlike Carris and train services, which must maintain minimum services, the Arbitration Tribunal of the Economic and Social Council (CES) unanimously decided “not to establish minimum services concerning train operations” in the Lisbon Metro, a decision the company announced it will appeal.
In a statement released on Monday, Lisbon Metro stated that the decision not to set minimum services has a “particularly serious impact” and undermines “the essential mobility needs of citizens” in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, emphasizing the “structural role” it plays in public transport.
“Lisbon Metro reaffirms that it is possible to reconcile the exercise of the right to strike with ensuring a minimum level of safe, reliable, and predictable mobility,” it stated.
The company also reiterated that the defense of public interest, customer safety, and service continuity “constitute structural and permanent principles of its operations.”
On Thursday, CGTP has planned protests in 15 districts, in the Azores and Madeira.
The proposed changes in the government’s labor law reform target various areas such as parental leave, dismissals, extension of contract deadlines, and sectors now required to provide minimum services in the event of a strike.
Named “Labor XXI,” the proposal is presented by the government as a “profound” revision of labor legislation, featuring amendments to “more than a hundred” articles of the Labor Code.
Following criticisms from the two main labor unions, the government submitted a new proposal to UGT with some concessions, such as dropping the simplification of dismissals in medium-sized companies, while retaining the return of the individual time bank and the revocation of the rule restricting outsourcing in case of dismissal, according to a document reported first by the newspaper Público.
This will be the first strike uniting CGTP and UGT since June 2013, during Portugal’s intervention by the ‘troika’.
