The Minister of Labor meets this Monday with the UGT and business confederations about changes to labor law, a meeting that takes place in the week in which the union federation led by Mário Mourão meets with the national secretariat.
Restrictions on ‘outsourcing’, return of the individual time bank, length of contract term or reinstatement of workers in case of unlawful dismissal, highlighted as ‘red lines’ for the UGT, are some of the changes that will still be at the center of the discussion to reach an eventual consensus and the document currently under discussion does not bring any great approximations in these aspects.
According to the document to which Lusa had access, the Government insists on extending the term of fixed-term and uncertain-term contracts, on not reinstatement of workers in the case of unlawful dismissal, as well as on the return of the individual time bank and the revocation of the group time bank, even though it makes some adjustments in ‘outsourcing’ and in the sectors covered by minimum services in the event of a strike. And, as in previous versions, drops the simplification of dismissals for just cause.
This document was delivered almost two weeks ago to the UGT and the four business confederations: CIPCCP, CTP e CAP.
In a clarification sent to Lusa, the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security declined to comment on the “content” of the document “which is under reservation” and said “that this is not a proposal from the Government, but the point at which negotiations with partners are at, including UGT”.
In recent months, the Government has chosen to meet with the UGT and the four business confederations, leaving the CGTP – which also has a seat in the Social Concertation and even presented a counter-proposal in a bilateral meeting on September 3 – out of the meetings, with the executive arguing that the trade union central placed itself on the sidelines of the negotiations from the beginning by asking for the proposal to be withdrawn.
In turn, the trade union central insists that the discussion must be held in plenary Social Concertation meetings and has asked for an “urgent meeting” with the President of the Republic to denounce what it points out as a violation of the “rights of participation of workers’ representative organizations in the drafting of labor laws”.
On March 24, UGT and ‘bosses’ indicated that they needed “more time” to discuss changes in labor law and highlighted that the negotiation “is not completed”, not committing to a deadline and with UGT referring the issue to the government.
The general secretary of UGT, Mário Mourão, also indicated that at the national secretariat, scheduled for Thursday, “various matters” will be addressed and that “naturally an evaluation will also be made” of the negotiation process on changes to the labor law, which has been going on for eight months.
The final decision on a possible agreement will always have to go through a plenary Social Concertation meeting.
On the Government side, and after the Minister of Labor reiterated that she will not “eternalize” the discussion, the Prime Minister has already signaled that the proposal will reach Parliament “soon”.
With or without an agreement, Palma Ramalho guaranteed that the government will “take advantage of the contributions” from social partners and civil society that the executive deems relevant, in an apparent ‘message’ addressed to the President of the Republic, who had warned, during the electoral campaign, that he would veto the proposal as it initially stood if there was no agreement and given that it was not included in the parties’ electoral program.
