The CGTP has called for demonstrations in Lisbon and Porto on September 20 against the preliminary draft of the labor law revision, urging workers to mobilize against what it describes as “an assault on rights” and an “affront to the Constitution.”
“Given the severity of the content and the calendar set by the government, with meetings already scheduled for next month, the CGTP-IN considers it essential to advance awareness among workers and to organize a day of struggle in September, marking a rejection of the labor package and mobilizing action to defeat it,” announced CGTP General Secretary Tiago Oliveira today.
Speaking at a press conference in Porto, the head of the union center called for everyone to unite “in the fight against the labor package,” which he claims “assails workers’ rights” and “affronts the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.”
He further advocated for the “demand for revocation of the harmful norms of the labor legislation that already imbalance work relations, leaving those who work unprotected.”
“The fundamental issue is the starting point that the government offered to workers for the discussion of this labor package. The presentation of this labor package immediately places workers at a completely disadvantageous position in terms of improving their living conditions,” said Tiago Oliveira.
Considering the package a “deeply ideological one that only responds to the interests of businesses and large economic groups and places workers in a position of fragility right from the start,” the CGTP leader assured that the center will not “allow something very bad to be approved later, with some circumstantial changes, as less bad.”
For the CGTP, the government’s draft for labor law revision “attacks a wide range of rights,” containing proposals that “aim to perpetuate and exacerbate low wages, promote deregulation of working hours, multiply reasons and extend deadlines for precarious work contracts, facilitate dismissals, and limit the defense and reintegration of workers.”
Additionally, the measures in the draft “attack maternity and paternity rights, facilitate expiration and promote the destruction of collective bargaining,” and “attack union freedom and the right to strike, imposing limitations that deeply violate these fundamental rights.”
“Equally severe,” according to Tiago Oliveira, is that none of the proposals presented by the executive aim to resolve the current problems in labor legislation, particularly “norms that harm workers and their rights and need to be revoked.”
In this context, the national day of struggle scheduled for September 20 aims to “make the workers’ voices heard” and “raise the level of struggle, in workplaces and on the streets,” demanding “more wages and more rights” and “against the rising cost of living, in defense of public services and the social functions of the state.”
According to the CGTP leader, to allow workers to participate in the demonstrations planned for Lisbon and Porto, strike notices will be issued in various sectors.
An approved draft by the Council of Ministers to reform labor legislation, which will still be discussed and negotiated with social partners, includes a review of “more than a hundred articles of the Labor Code.”
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The government’s draft reform of labor legislation, to be negotiated with social partners, envisages the revision of “more than a hundred” articles of the Labor Code.
The proposed changes, referred to as ‘Trabalho XXI’ and presented by the government on July 24 as a “profound” revision of labor legislation, cover areas ranging from parenthood (with changes to parental leave, breastfeeding, and gestational mourning) to flexible work, company training, or the trial period for work contracts, and include an extension of sectors covered by minimum services in case of a strike.
According to the Minister of Labor, Solidarity, and Social Security, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, the aim is to make labor regimes more flexible “which are very rigid,” in order to increase “economic competitiveness and promote company productivity.”
Additionally, the minister noted that the reform “values workers through merit,” stimulates employment, “especially youth employment,” and boosts collective bargaining.
[News updated at 11:49 AM]
