General strike in Portugal against Montenegro’s labor reform that facilitates layoffs and temporary contracts

The Executive presented its proposal in the summer and in September it began negotiations with the employers and the unions, which are still underway without having reached agreements for the moment.

The Government defends that the Labor Code currently in force needs to get rid of the “rigidity” that characterizes it, and that with the proposed alterations the labor market will become more flexible.

However, the main unions, including the General Union of Workers (UGT) and the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), consider that these changes are a setback for labor rights.

Montenegro’s labor reform

In this sense, worker representatives criticize that with these modifications, companies will have more facilities to make temporary contractsas in the case of young people under the premise that they lack experience, in addition to making it possible forand services are outsourced after a collective dismissal y dismissals for justified cause are simplified.

CGTP indicates that if the reform goes ahead, the “individual hour bank”, prior agreement between the employer and the worker, which would mean that the working day could increase up to two hours a day, reaching the 50 hours per week and a maximum of 150 hours a year “of free work for employers.”

The unions denounce that the changes can also bring about their own weakening by limiting union action in workplaces where there is still no organization, and represent an “attack” on maternity and paternity rights.

This is because, among the measures put on the table by the Government, is that flexible schedules for mothers and fathers with children up to 12 years old with disabilities or chronic illness become dependent on the “adjustment to the operation of the company”, in addition to reducing the breastfeeding leave to two years.

First strike in 12 years

Portugal has not experienced a strike of these characteristics since June 2013, in the middle of the ‘troika’, when Portuguese workers protested against the austerity policy of the former prime minister’s government Pedro Passos Coelhofrom the conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD), which now presides over Montenegro.

Thursday extensive follow-up is anticipated of the call, with much of the transport paralyzed for the accession of the civil aviation unions, those of commuter trains and those of the Lisbon and Porto metro, as well as the health and public education workers.

This strike will also affect Spain. Air Europa cancels all its flights for this Thursday and Iberia reduces its routes by up to 75%.

Los picketing will begin this Wednesday night, The unions have announced, and they will last throughout Thursday throughout the country.

Tomorrow, one large demonstration will tour the center of Lisbon against labor reform, with parallel marches in Oporto, Braga, Évora, Faro, Guarda, Coimbra, Leiria, Santarém, Setúbal and Viana do Castelo, among others.