Tiago Petinga / Lusa
9-day chaos — and 8 thousand tons of trash. “Without eggs to make omelets”, urban hygiene workers go on strike. Caught by surprise, Moedas asks for help, but “if there is total compliance, no one can save this situation”.
With urban hygiene workers in greve on the 26th and 27th and on strike against overtime between Christmas Day and New Year’s Evethe capital could become an open dump for 9 days.
On New Year’s Day, the strike will only take place at night, during normal and additional work, between 10pm on the 1st and 6am on the 2nd of January. The union justifies the announced strike with “the non-responses from the executive” from local authority to the problems affecting the Urban Hygiene sector.
The options of the authority led by Carlos Moedas “allowed opening doors to the private sector to carry out certain functions associated with the public urban hygiene service, in all dimensions unacceptable“, highlights the union.
Moedas asks for help, but parishes “can only accommodate themselves”
The mayor of Lisbon called on all parish council presidents to join the municipality in defending negotiations with unions.
In a letter sent to all parish council presidents, to which Lusa had access, Carlos Moedas says that the municipality was taken by surprise with the call for strike and asks that the councils do “everything in their power” to mitigate the negative effects of this strike.
But “if there is total support for the strike, there is no one who can save this situation”warns the president of the Parish Council of Marvila in statements to .
“We can only practically accommodate ourselves. We don’t have the means in terms of transportation, whoever does the collection, who has this heavy material, is the city hall itself”, reinforces José Antonio Videira.
To the residents, Moedas, who warned of the chaos, asked: “be aware of what we are experiencing and avoid depositing rubbish, if you can”. For the mayor, this is “everyone’s problem” and he believes that they could be for collecting more than 8 thousand tons of garbage.
“Lisbon residents will live through very difficult days”, highlighted Moedas.
Emergency plan
In a meeting with the parish council presidents, the city hall has already decided on some measures to mitigate the effects of the strike, such as creating a crisis management teamdistribute construction dumpsters throughout the parishes, so that residents have somewhere to deposit their garbage and ask large garbage producers to do their own collection on strike days and consider the possibility of teleworking on those days.
The socialist mayor of Marvila reinforces, despite everything, that “he will try to help the Lisbon City Council” by “identifying the strategic points” that he understands that “there will be greater concentration and accumulation of waste”, so that “the due containers”, but highlights: these problems can affect more than 40 thousand people in Marvila alone.
O problem is “transversal” across the entire citywarns Ricardo Mexia, president of the Lumiar Parish Council, as the situation is aggravated by the festive season, which always causes a greater accumulation of rubbish, and therefore admits that there may be “greater deposition of waste near recycling bins and in the recycling bins themselves”. containers.”
“There will be important constraints, whether in the collection of recycling bins or in door-to-door collection”, he warns.
“Without eggs you can’t make omelets”
The union also accused the Lisbon City Council of being incapable of organizing the workers it has at its disposal and of “failing to respond to the real problems experienced in urban cleaning”, demanding “compliance with and respect for the agreement concluded in June 2023” in relation to several issues, namely the carrying out of works and interventions in the facilities and the opening of food spaces for employees.
The organization also demands “respect for the right to balance work, personal and family life”, the end of “informal punishments that continue to occur” and the need for an equitable distribution of overtime work, which must be carried out by all available workers, among other matters.
The need for a “urgent public investment” in the sector is also highlighted by the union, which indicates that “45.2% of vehicles essential for removal are inoperable” and that “22.6% of the workforce is physically impaired or on leave due to work accidents”.
“Every week, countless circuits remain to be done. And do workers blame themselves for this reality? As is often said, ‘you can’t make omelettes without eggs'”, highlights the STML, warning that the struggle of Urban Hygiene workers may not end this Christmas season and that it is the exclusive responsibility of the municipal executive to evaluate the options and solutions to the various problems.
“It’s unfair”, says Moedas
In the letter, Moedas also asks the council presidents to add their voice to that of the city council in the appeal “to the social responsibility of unions”.
“Our parishes will be, due to their proximity to the people, the most affected by the effects of the strike”, writes Moedas, extending the appeal to the mayors so that everyone can unite in the search for a solution with the unions to “solve the concrete hygiene problems urban area of the city”.
“Without radicalism, without compromising people’s lives, without harming the city”, writes Carlos Moedas, considering that the city needs dialogue and not “extreme positions”.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Carlos Moedas assured that he will do everything to avoid the garbage collection strike and asked the unions to negotiate with the municipality.
“It’s unfair. It is unfair from now on, because this executive that I have led for just three years has been doing everything it can to improve the working conditions of women and men in urban hygiene”, said Moedas, calling on the unions to sit at the table with the local authority.
“It is not by creating chaos that we gain the right. Not even Cariocas can be victims of any strategy of political or union affirmation. I will do everything to negotiate and avoid the strike”, said Moedas, considering that if the strike goes ahead “the people of Lisbon will live through very difficult days” in terms of public health.
Tomás Guimarães //
