Ideologically so different people, from André Ventura to Miguel Sousa Tavares, often use an argument similar to this: “most of the labor laws date back to the PREC era”, which is like saying “they smell like communism” and, therefore, they need to be replaced with something “more modern”.
I am very sorry that this is not the case, but, in truth, there is no flavor of communism in the labor laws that are in force.
The labor legislation was completely redesigned in 2002 by a man from the CDS-PP, Bagão Félix, and negotiated in social consultation by him and a Secretary of State for Labor from that Durão Barroso government, Luís Pais Antunes.
Bagão Félix himself explained, in a book I wrote in 2022 for the Economic and Social Council, that before “his” labor package there was great legal confusion “due to all labor legislation being dispersed in more than 60 diplomas and with some contradictions between them, with omissions, with laws that still came from the Estado Novo, other laws that resulted from the post-25th of April fever, very emotional from a political point of view”.
It was, therefore, to put an end to the “Aprilist emotion” that this legislation was produced, supported by social consultation by employers and UGT.
Two major structural changes were made there, which came into force in 2003: expiry was introduced in collective employment contracts and the principle of more favorable treatment for workers was eliminated.
Let me explain:
Before 2003, collective employment contracts lasted until they were replaced by new ones. After that, after some time, they could be terminated even without there being a new contract to replace them.
This, in practice, gave employers the power to negotiate collective bargaining only at the time and in the sectors of activity that suited them, simply by denouncing the current contract and then failing to speak to the unions, preventing the negotiation of a new contract.
From then on, many workers were at the mercy of what each manager, in each company, decided to do — this is radically “liberal” and “free market”, giving enormous discretionary power, indirectly and ingeniously, to companies.
Before 2003, if there was a contradiction between a law, a collective agreement or an individual employment contract, the rule that was most favorable to the worker would apply. Since 2003, there has been a list of some standards in which this principle applies (for example, non-sexual or racial discrimination, minimum wage, individual dismissal regime, etc.), but in central issues such as mobility, payment of bonuses or subsidies, organization of schedules and many others, this no longer happens.
The 2009 amendments to the 2003 code, in substance, left these regimes to remain. And the subsequent continuity was, in fact, one of the failures of the “contraption” and, later, a deliberate blockade by the absolute PS Government of António Costa.
Contrary to what is said, the current labor legislation is not left-wing legislation. It is right-wing legislation, designed to eliminate “the post-25th of April fever” that Bagão Félix “diagnosed” and “cured”, in line with the dominant spirit in the European Union. What this Government now intends with its labor package, provoking a joint general strike by the CGTP and UGT, is a new fever — perhaps a belated and ideological “25 November fever”.
Journalist