The country is on strike because the Government has hit hard against reality. The Portuguese are very flexible, they understand well what the public authorities ask of them, but there are limits.
This strike is for Montenegro what the TSU was for Passos Coelho. This does not mean that there is a revolt that will already lead to a general feeling of dissatisfaction, especially since there is not yet a credible alternative, but it is clear that the proposed path is not useful.
The country’s shutdown will require a new path for negotiation. The parties that support the government say that it is essential to guarantee an agreement with the UGT while undermining the CGTP. This is a serious error, assumed over time by the PS and PSD, and one that would be important to correct. However, such an agreement is, from now on, more demanding, because it is provoked by a broad mobilization of workers and not by mere negotiation in social consultation.
Portugal was considered a revelation economy in 2024. Nothing different from what had happened in 2019, 2022 and 2023. But being a revelation, what leads us to think that there is a need for a labor reform like the one proposed? Most good businesspeople and qualified managers don’t understand.
There are two major points that are identified by business surprise. 1st the complete degradation of collective bargaining; 2nd that of contempt by labor courts.
There are those who say that collective bargaining is an obstacle to economic growth, something that no specialist in labor matters confirms. The agreement between unions and businesspeople is relevant in all developed countries, with some (Germany for example) in which this agreement goes as far as the presence of unions within the company, the participation of workers in the strategic definition of companies and in the management itself. The case of Auto Europa is paradigmatic of this relationship. Therefore, it was important to make the country grow in collective bargaining and not regress. Retrograding collective bargaining is damaging the social balance on which advanced democracies are based.
With regard to the unintelligible proposal that a decision by the labor courts, particularly regarding the reinstatement of workers, can be opposed by the company, what this reveals is a complete change of paradigm, a step backwards that no country with a “free labor market” has dared to take. If such a measure were approved, it would overturn the principle of safeguarding the weakest, something that the PPD/PSD has never authorized throughout its history. The Democratic Alliance wants to kill the encyclical Rerum Novarum once and for all.
There is, in the Government’s proposal, a vast set of rules that are intolerant, insensitive and insignificant. The new norms regarding breastfeeding, parental leave or weekend work are everything that a country like ours, with one of the lowest birth rates in the Western world, cannot understand. The proposal could only have been thought up by someone who doesn’t care about the future, who doesn’t have the slightest idea about the so-called “demographic winter” we are already in.
With the same disregard for the family, rural workers, one of the most attacked groups, and domestic workers were also victims of the hundreds of changes to the Labor Code.
For the first, the return from sun to sun; for the second, the return to work without discounts and without insurance. Those who propose these labor measures use the whip on the day laborers on their farms and force the ladies, who clean the houses and provide food for their families, to introduce men to the “art” of making their children fatherless.
The proposed proposals therefore deserve more than rejection, repudiation.
However, on December 12th the country will have the same government and the same unions and employers. Negotiation will have to be done and the agreement will have to be materialized.
There is, without any doubt, a need to adapt the work and business reality to the fast-paced world in which we live and, to achieve this, the contract to be signed will have to start with the companies’ efforts in the quality of their management. This is exactly where the central problem of our productivity lies.
Firstly, the government must present a legislative plan that requires the qualification of entrepreneurs and managers; the mandatory integration of senior technicians, valuing masters and doctors, in the structure of companies with more than ten workers; the definition of rules for attributing credits, which entrepreneurs must have in their own training, to present themselves, for example, in public competitions; the mandatory determination of new quality rules in companies and true professional training for employees.
Secondly, the world of work also needs to adapt. The issues of labor elasticity, the provision of outsourced services, teleworking and very short-term contracts need to be analyzed, based on benchmarkingbefore an agreement. This is where unions need to have their elasticity and better understanding of today’s world.
The general strike, which marks a moment of conflict between the government and the country, is not compatible with announcements of a minimum wage of 1,600 euros or average wages of 3,000 euros. And there is one point that Montenegro must understand first of all – Portuguese workers are not a disposable thing nor are they mere numbers behind a greater GDP that is not revealed in reinforced human development indicators.
Today there is a strike. Long live the General Strike.