Distribution workers are on strike this Saturday, calling for higher wages, career advancement and a review of the collective bargaining agreement.
The initiator of the action was the Union of Trade, Office and Service Workers of Portugal (CESP) in October.
Workers are demanding a general increase in wages, career development and a revision of the collective labor agreement (CLA), which, according to the union structure, has not been revised since 2016.
“We do not accept that in the same sector, millions of dollars of corporate profits coexist with wages very close to the national minimum wage, whether they come today or have worked in the same place for decades,” highlighted by CESP in October.
The union claims that Portuguese companies on average “spend only 15.2% of their total costs on wages”, with this percentage falling to 9% in the commercial sector.
“The salaries of distribution company workers are losing value every year. If specialist operator salaries were updated in the same proportion as the rise in the national minimum wage over the last 15 years, a supermarket operator at the top of his career would be earning €1,042.83,” says CESP.
The CGTP union also notes that the national minimum wage has “already exceeded the upper limits” of the latest table agreed with the Portuguese Association of Distribution Companies (APED) in 2016.