For a Europe of workers and peoples.
Assert our sovereignty. Fight in defense of rights
More jobs, national production, wages, public services.
On May 8th, bearing in mind the “Porto Social Summit”, a huge flow of struggles by workers in Portugal, from both public and private sectors, flocked into the streets of Porto, continuing the magnificent journey of 1st May, International Workers’ Day.
The many thousands of workers who participated in the CGTP-IN National Rally brought up specific and general demands of each workplace, company and sector, and claimed solutions to structural problems all over the country, noticing the government and EU policies as a stonewall for the fulfilment and resolution of their demands.
The flock of workers gave voice to CGTP-IN demand for a change of course. The National Rally raised high above the defence of a Europe of workers and peoples. They defended the democratic break with the interests of large capital and the great powers that dominate the EU. They underlined the decisive role of sovereignty in defending and winning rights.
Nacional Rally Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYN1-oq9aK0
Nacional Rally photographs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cgtp-in/sets/72157719142301997/
In the speech given by the General Secretary of CGTP-IN, Isabel Camarinha considered that the European Pillar of Social Rights, and its Implementation Plan, aim at: perpetuating low wages and unemployment, accentuating precarity, facilitating redundancies, moving forward with the commodification of social rights, particularly in health, education and social security, raising the retirement age, among other similar objectives.
Under the label of "social rights", there has been an increase in exploitation, an attack on labour rights and other social rights. This is a repetition of the fake promises that we have known since Portugal joined the EEC in 1986, such as those, in the wake of the loss of sovereignty, that claimed that workers in Portugal would receive equal wages to the EU average, and would achieve full employment.
And to demonstrate this, she gave the example of the Portuguese government policy, which currently holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU. If the Portuguese government wanted to defend workers' rights and solve the immense social problems that are accumulating in the country, it could do so regardless of the Pillar and other EU guidelines and decisions. And it doesn't do it.
Wages of workers in Portugal continue to be among the lowest in the entire EU and wages inequalities and wealth distribution between capital and labour exacerbated, particularly during the COVID-19 epidemic. There is the possibility and the need for a general increase in wages by 90 € and the setting of the National Minimum Wage at 850 €, as the CGTP-IN claims. But the government does not increase them or promote their increment.
In addition to low wages, Portugal has a serious problem with precarity. Both due to inaction and measures such as the extension of workers’ trial period to 6 months, the government has been perpetuating precarity, which effects became more visible with the widespread dismissal of workers with precarious ties during the epidemic outbreak.
The government insists on maintaining a set of burdensome labour rules in labour legislation that weaken workers, namely in keeping the elimination of the principle of more favourable treatment, the lapse of collective agreements (currently only suspended for two years), contracts with very short duration, banked hours and deregulation of working hours, temporary work, easy and cheap dismissals, generalization of telework.
The government insists on subjecting the country to the impositions and constraints of the EU, which are particularly serious in the case of those which have an impact on economic and budgetary policy, limiting or frustrating rights enshrined in the Portuguese Republic’s Constitution and mortgaging the necessary response to pressing economic and social problems, opting for channelling public investment into EU funds. By doing so, it subjects workers and peoples to the "conditionalities", that is to say to the policy of exploitation and impoverishment that they live in.
The answer and the development of the alternative will come from the workers' struggle, their organization and great class unity against the assault of great capital and the EU; from solidarity and international cooperation, without, however, abdicating of resorting to all means and possibilities to intervene in Portugal and the EU in defence of workers' rights and interests, and sovereignty, forging the essential elements for the struggle for a Europe of workers and peoples.
João Barreiros
Responsible for International Relations at the Executive Board