General strike: Montenegro respects, “but…”

The Prime Minister said this Thursday that he continues to find it strange that a general strike is moving forward. He stated that the Government knows how to “live” with it, but that it will not be this legitimate right that will make it lose focus on labor legislation decisions.

In his speech at the PME Excelência awards ceremony, which took place at the Pavilhão Multiúsos de Guimarães, in front of hundreds of businesspeople, the prime minister highlighted taxation, the fight against bureaucracy and a “more flexible and investment-friendly labor legislation”.

“Because we want to make the leap from 2%, to 3% or 3.5% or 4% of growth in our product. Because we want our companies to be effectively more agile and able to take advantage of your human capital, encouraging you to be more productive“, he stated.

Luís Montenegro called for an economy that is “more competitive and attractive to investment, because we want there to be no projects left undone because there is hesitation regarding some excessive rigidity in some rules of labor legislation”, explained the head of Government.

And this is where the topic of the new labor package and the general strike called by workers for December 11th came into play.

Montenegro stated that he respected the strike, but with “strangeness”.

“The right to strike is legitimate and we know how to live with it, despite this strangeness“, these.

“Evidently, it is not by exercising it that we will lose focus of our responsibility to make the decisions that are necessary at this moment, with the maximum possible consensus, to fulfill our obligation to make the country more competitive, more robust to face the coming years”, he added.

Speaking to journalists, Luís Montenegro stated that negotiations with the unions are ongoing, stressing that the “basis of the agreement will always mean a concession from each party.

Asked if he would like to sit at the negotiating table, joining the labor minister and being part of this negotiation, the prime minister replied: “of course”.

Luís Montenegro also recalled in his speech that “there are many people in Portugal” who question the timing of these labor changes, when the country “is on the right track, is growing, has almost full employment and has increased wages”.

“We believe that it is precisely now that we have conditions that we are growing, that we have full employment, that we have the financial situation under control, it is now that we have the obligation and we must have the courage to transform the labor market, it is not to revolutionize, to give companies, and by giving companies we give workers the opportunity to have better wages. That is why we are changing labor laws”, stressed the prime minister, in his speech.

And so the strangeness returns

Luís Montenegro was once again surprised by the scheduling of the general strike for December 11th, at a time when, in his opinion, the country has the conditions to move forward with labor changes.

“It’s a little strange, in a country where salaries go up and up more than in other countries, in a country where taxes on income from work go down and down unlike what happens in other countries, in a country where the Government reaches an agreement only within the scope of public administration, with 19 careers, unlike what happens in other countries, in a country where there is such a situation of almost full employment, It is very strange that there is a general strike. I also confess that I have some difficulty understandingr”, admitted the prime minister.