“There are no objective reasons for such a significant protest movement. We live in a country with many labor challenges. The proposal we are discussing with social partners is precisely under negotiation with them,” stated Luís Montenegro to journalists during a visit to the Beneficente Portuguesa Hospital in Belém, Brazil.
The unions CGTP and UGT are planning a general strike in the first half of December due to the government’s labor reform, which would be the first joint general strike since 2013.
While expressing “respect for union activity,” the Prime Minister remarked that “there is no reason to make a final decision on a process that is ongoing and in consultation.”
“I find it very difficult to understand why, in a context where Portugal was, in the past year, the country within the OECD where workers’ income increased the most due to a reduction in income taxes and a rise in wages, there should be a general strike,” emphasized the Prime Minister.
“Union representatives must explain why they are embarking on a day of struggle of this magnitude, if that is indeed true,” he stressed, also calling for “a sense of responsibility” in union activities and that “no capture of workers’ interests and unions’ activities by political parties closely linked to unions should occur.”
The government’s main changes to labor law include extending the duration of fixed-term contracts, reintroducing individual working hour banks, lifting restrictions on outsourcing after layoffs, revising parental leave, and strengthening mandatory minimum services in the event of a strike.
On October 22, UGT Deputy Secretary-General Soraia Duarte considered that there was “an imposition” of the draft labor reform rather than a “negotiation” between the government and social partners.
The union leader mentioned that the UGT has already presented its contributions, suggesting amendments to the government’s labor reform, but “no concrete proposals are forthcoming from the other side.”
“After this, there is nothing to negotiate,” Soraia Duarte concluded.
