“We will have our stores open and we want to believe that we will have a normal operation, therefore maintaining the standards to which we have always accustomed our customers,” stated Luís Moutinho, CEO of Sonae MC.
He was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of an event marking the 40th anniversary of the first Continente store in Portugal, inaugurated on December 10, 1995. When asked about the expectations for Continente stores for Thursday, when a general strike is scheduled, Luís Moutinho said he does not foresee “significant impacts.”
“We respect the strike. We respect the right to strike, but that said, we believe that tomorrow [Thursday] we will not have significant impacts and therefore our stores will be open and available to our customers,” and “we operate within full legality, but above all, we work with our people to make them feel good.”
Luís Moutinho reiterated several times that he respects the unions, but believes in the “best relationship” he has with the group’s workers.
“The general strike is scheduled for tomorrow [Thursday]. We respect the unions; we have a professional relationship with the unions who play their part, but above all, we have a very good relationship with our people. People are at the center of our activity, and we believe we have the best relationship with them, and that indeed people are satisfied and happy to be working at Continente and other brands,” he argued.
The general strike on Thursday against the Government’s draft labor law reform will be the first to bring together the two union confederations, CGTP and UGT, since June 2013, when Portugal was under the intervention of the ‘troika’.
Sonae MC announced today that it intends to invest 1 billion euros by 2030 in opening 100 new Continente stores and remodeling 150 others in Portugal.
