Against the “boss’s order”, general strike on December 11th

Date announced after the national march against the profound reform that the Government wants to implement. “The attack is brutal.”

A large part of the country will actually come to a standstill: what was already taken for granted has a date.

The general secretary of the CGTP announced this Saturday a general strike to December 11th (Thursday), at the end of the national march against , in Lisbon.

“We announce the holding of the general strike against the labor package”, said the general secretary of the CGTP, Tiago Oliveira, in a speech at Restauradores, in Lisbon, at the end of a march against the labor package.

Tiago Oliveira said that “with a position already taken or in the final decision process by many union structures, it was possible to establish convergence for a general strike on December 11th”.

The general secretary of the CGTP stated that “the bigger the attack, the bigger the workers’ response”, pointing out that today “a large national march against the labor package was held, but the fight will not stop”.

“The attack is brutal, let’s go on a general strike”the workers began to chant, or “The labor package is boss’s order“.

Reform “of the boss”

This announcement came after the march against the “boss’s” labor package, organized by CGTP.

This Saturday’s demonstration saw thousands of workers walk down Avenida da Liberdade, in Lisbon, protesting against the changes to labor law proposed by the Government of Luís Montenegro.

Under the motto “All to Lisbon”, the demonstration called by the trade union central led by Tiago Oliveira began with two pre-concentrations in the capital: public sector workers gathered in Amoreiras and private sector workers in Saldanha, both of which ended in Marquês de Pombal.

At the demonstration, slogans were chanted such as “we are not going to give up, the package is about to fall” and “the labor package is ordered by the boss, there is nothing to cheat, it is to increase exploitation”.

Holding flags from various unions and organizations and posters reading phrases such as “no to the labor package, another path is possible”, people of all ages walked down Avenida da Liberdade to gather at Restauradores, where several CGTP figures spoke.

“Big can”

Paulo Raimundo and Mariana Mortágua were also there.

Faced with the statement made by the Prime Minister and President of the PSD about a possible “capture of the interest of workers and the activity of unions by the interests of political parties who are closely linked to trade unions”, Paulo Raimundo and Mariana Mortágua returned the accusation to Luís Montenegro, associating the PSD/CDS-PP executive with the interests of large economic groups.

“Do you have the nerve to talk about captured unions? It is a Government captured by the banks, by the largest companies and economic groups in the country and which wants to attack those who work, as the right does, systematically, when it comes to power”, reacted the national coordinator of BE.

The secretary general of the PCP had a similar reaction: “It takes a big can. A Government and a Prime Minister that aim to increase precariousness even further than what already exists and is already in the thousands”.

Regarding the general strike, 12 years after the last one, Paulo Raimundo said that there is a scent of troika: “Times don’t repeat themselves, but I would say there are smells. It smells like the ‘troika’, but not now. It smells like the `troika` in the Budget, it smells like the `troika` in the dismantling of the National Health Service, it smells like the `troika` when it comes to education and tuition fees, it smells like the `troika` in labor law, it smells, it smells”.