The Minister of Labor, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, stated that the government took a bold step with the proposed revision of the labor law, ensuring that if no agreement is reached with partners, the measures will proceed to Parliament as originally designed by the government.
“The government chose this path, but it is a path that indeed risks what has already happened. I have said more than once, we took a bold move, that’s what we did here and faced the challenges. If we reach an agreement, it is this agreement that we will defend in the Assembleia da República during the discussion in the specialty. If not, the bill will go to the AR where the representatives of the people will be sovereign,” the Minister of Labor stated in remarks broadcast by TVI.
Open to Dialogue Without Forsaking “Pillars”
The government does not intend to abandon the “pillars” of the draft labor law reform during negotiations in social dialogue, the Minister of Labor, Solidarity, and Social Security had previously stated.
At the opening of a conference on labor law reform organized by the newspaper Eco, the minister expressed hope that the dialogue “will produce results” and showed willingness to negotiate with social partners. However, “we will not prolong the process in social dialogue,” she affirmed.
The Minister of Labor considered that the government’s decision to involve social partners in the discussion of labor changes was “a more demanding and riskier path,” but she expressed confidence in the “potential” of this decision to prevent “ideological prejudices that conditioned debates of previous reforms.”
Despite the growth of employment and the increase in the average salary in Portugal, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho argued that now is the right time to advance changes in labor laws because “serious structural problems persist.”
The Minister of Labor today advocated the need to “calibrate” the rights of parents in regard to parental leave, noting that some pregnant women are unlawfully dismissed “when the employer anticipates all those rights.”
“We have productivity 28% below the EU average, and an average gross salary 35% below the European average,” she highlighted, indicating that the changes planned in the government’s draft are intended to improve the country’s competitiveness.
Furthermore, the wage disparity reaches 14% between men and women, increasing to over 20% in more qualified professions.
“We have the most qualified generation ever, with women in the majority, but we are educating women to pay them less,” she pointed out.
The Minister of Labor also referenced the high youth unemployment rate, close to 20%, and the “drama” of poverty affecting 2 million people in Portugal.
“These are the reasons why the government could not relent,” despite employment market growth, she concluded.
The main changes proposed by the government to the labor law include extending the duration of fixed-term contracts, the return of the individual time bank, the end of the restriction on external hiring after layoffs, the revision of parental leave, and the strengthening of mandatory minimum services in the event of a strike.
