BE denies having fired workers who were breastfeeding

The Bloco de Esquerda talks about “lies and errors” after Sábado magazine reported that the party fired workers who had recently become mothers, and who were still breastfeeding.

The party reacted to a report from Sábado magazine that said that the Bloc fired five workers who had recently become mothers between 2022 and 2024and following the need to reduce staff due to the loss of votes in the last elections.

These cases will be commented on “behind the scenes of the party with uncomfortable due to the ethical issue they raise”, since BE is one of the most active parties in defense of , postpartum women and breastfeeding women, as stated in the same magazine.

However, BE talks about “errors and lies” of the publication, accusing it of “a political attack which dispensed with journalism and fact-checking”, and adds that he will file a complaint with the Social Communication Regulatory Entity.

After the January 2022 elections, the Bloc “lost half of the monthly subsidy received, reduced its headquarters network and its professional structure by approximately half 30 people“, assumes the Bloc in a statement published on social media, which guarantees that the incident took place with full respect for the law.

“Party bought the silence of workers”

Sábado says that two of the employees allegedly fired “were on staff and that, to circumvent the lawthe party gave them fixed-term contracts without functionsso that the “salary” served as compensation”.

“It was an agreement and the party bought the silence of the workers so that the situation would not be known”, a source reveals to .

These two women would still be breastfeeding children aged two and nine monthsrespectively.

The two jobs ended up being occupied “by people without children and without family commitments” – one will be “a man” and the other will be “girlfriend of a BE director (former deputy)”, the magazine also assures.

“No worker with a 2-month-old baby was fired”

But the Bloc denies this version, highlighting that, in these two cases and “in consideration of particular personal situationsthe Block proposed that the contract be terminated at the end of December 2022, guaranteeing the two employees more preparation time the next phase of their lives.”

“No workers “with a two-month-old baby” she was fired from the Bloc staff”, assures the party, which also highlights that “no worker affected by the end of service commissions was replaced by another worker hired for this purpose”.

Errors and lies from Sábado magazine. Block files complaint with ERC.

— Bloco de Esquerda (@BlocoDeEsquerda)

Advisors with children lost jobs at the European Parliament

Sábado also states that after the European elections, in which BE only managed to elect, advisors from the Bloc’s European parliamentary group in Brussels were dismissed, who “they had been new mothers“.

According to the same source, one of them was maternity leave and he could not return to work in Brussels, as he needed to look after his son, and BE did not renew his contract.

The other had a baby just 16 months old and was still breastfeeding, the magazine continues, noting that “two party sources” revealed that “it was customary for senior BE leaders to ask this worker to do work for the party when she was on maternity leave.”

The Bloc counters by highlighting that these two contracts were “automatically terminated by the European Parliament at the end of the mandates of José Gusmão and Marisa Matias, as happens with all the contracts of all European parliamentary assistants at the end of their mandates”.