The Government meets this Thursday in the Council of Ministers to approve the proposed law to review labor legislation, which will then be submitted to parliament and which did not receive agreement from social partners.
Luís Montenegro highlighted that the Government made “a huge effort” in terms of Social Concertation to reach an agreement on labor legislation and accused UGT of having been “intransigent and inflexible” in this process.
On May 7, the ended negotiations on changes to labor legislation without an agreement in the Social Concertation and accusing the UGT of having been intransigent and of not having given in “on any point”.
The Government will submit a bill to parliament based on the initial draft and with the “contributions that he considers useful and that he took from this process”, reiterated Rosário Palma Ramalho.
The draft reform of labor legislation, entitled “Work XXI”, was presented by the Government of Luís Montenegro (PSD and CDS-PP) on July 24, 2025 as a “deep” review of the Labor Code, including more than 100 changes.
The changes proposed in July received a resounding ‘no’ from the trade unions, who argued that it is an “attack” on workers’ rights, having led CGTP and UGT to move towards a convergent general strike on December 11, 2025.
In recent months, the government chose to meet with the UGT and the four business confederations at the Ministry of Labor, leaving the CGTP out, arguing that the trade union central placed itself on the sidelines of the negotiations from the beginning by demanding the withdrawal of the proposal.
The CGTP accused the Government of being “profoundly undemocratic” and having an “anti-constitutional” attitude by calling “parallel meetings” to the Social Concertation plenary meetings, and a new general strike against the reform is planned for June 3, but this time without the participation of the UGT.
