The general secretary of the CGTP said he expects a “strong participation” in the general strike called for next Thursday, December 11, with “a greater impact” on health, education and transport and guaranteed that minimum services “will be respected”.
“There are sectors, which, due to their size and the area they touch” will feel a “greater” impact”, stated the secretary general of CGTP, giving health, education and transport as an example.
Tiago Oliveira also recalled that the strike covers the public and private sector and said he believes that also in the private sector “workers will demonstrate their strong participation”.
The general strike was called in response to the draft labor review presented by the Government and marked in convergence with the UGT, in what will be the first strike to bring together the two unions since June 2013.
Asked whether the unions assigned to CGTP will respect the minimum services that will be decreed, Tiago Oliveira is adamant: “Minimum services must be respected and will always be respected”, assured, highlighting, however, that Under current law, the minimum services that are decreed “already exceed the normal functioning of institutions”.
Tiago Oliveira also reiterated his criticism of the Government’s intention to expand the sectors that are covered by minimum services in the event of a strikeindicating that the current Labor Code already ensures “the necessary mechanisms” to cover sectors in which “they are essential, giving health as an example.
“What this Government is doing is attacking the strike law”, argued Tiago Oliveira, criticizing the executive’s intention of wanting to extend minimum services to care services for children, the elderly, sick and people with disabilities, private security services for essential goods or equipment or food supply.
“Even today we do not understand what the Government understands when it places an area such as the food sector as a service of essential social need”, he pointed out.
The general secretary of GCTP also indicated that the decision for the union center to move towards a general strike was growing, given that they had already held two demonstrations on September 20th, in Lisbon and Porto, and another nationally on November 8th, so this strike culminates a “struggle journey”.
Despite mentioning that “the Government is in control of the calendar”, namely when it will submit the proposed law to review the labor law in parliament, Tiago Oliveira emphasizes that the CGTP’s perception is that “after the 27th” of November (the date of the final global vote on the State Budget for 2026), “the Government had the highway open to, at any moment, take its proposal to the Assembly of the Republic”.
E if “it is to fight, then let’s fight now, while the document is subject to social consultation”he added.
After the Minister of Labor, Rosário Palma Ramalho, said that she hopes that compliance with minimum services will make the civil requisition unnecessary and the Minister of Infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz, said that the executive will try to minimize the effects of the general strike, the general secretary of the CGTP considered it “important” that the Government “worried about the reasons that led to declaring the strike” instead of “being worried” about its effects.