Workers can celebrate May 1 this Monday by participating in various street initiatives promoted by the CGTP in different parts of the country and the UGT in Lisbon, whose main motto is the demand for higher wages and pensions.
The CGTP hopes to have a “great day of national struggle” on Labor Day as workers fill the streets and squares from north to south of Portugal and in the autonomous regions.
The motto of the celebrations, organized by the trade union led by Isabel Camarinha, is “More pay, more rights, better pensions! Against rising cost of living.
Workers will assert “their strength” and “outrage” by demanding higher wages and pensions and immediate measures to combat the rising cost of living, such as capping the prices of essential goods and services and emergency taxation.” on the colossal profits of large companies,” the CGTP said in a statement.
Strengthening public services and social functions of the state and guaranteeing the right to housing “opposition between capital and employers” and the demand from the government for “measures that value labor and workers” are other demands of the CGTP.
The CGTP Labor Day celebration in Lisbon starts in the morning with the traditional international race on May 1st, which starts and ends at the stadium on May 1st.
In the afternoon, starting at 2:30 pm, the CGTP is promoting the traditional parade between Martim Moniz and Alameda D. Afonso Henriques, where a trade union rally will be promoted with the general secretary of the trade union center, Isabelle Camarinha, as the keynote speaker. .
In Porto, an afternoon demonstration is planned on Avenida dos Aliados, where Tiago Oliveira, coordinator of the Union of Trade Unions of Porto and member of the executive committee of the CGTP, will speak.
Demonstrations, plenary sessions, folk festivals, sports competitions and exhibitions are planned in about 30 locations, including district centers, the Azores and Madeira.
In turn, the UGT is returning this year to celebrate May 1st at the Belém Tower in Lisbon in a gathering that the union center says will “bring hundreds of union leaders and workers to a big party.”
“Faced with rising costs of living, the UGT and its unions will renew their resolve to fight for higher and better wages, greater social dialogue, decent pensions and more job opportunities for young people,” says the central union. led by Mario Murao, the statement said.
The celebration at the union center starts with the 6th race of the UGT, at 10:30, on Carlos do Carmo Avenue, on the banks of the river Belen, and the concentration moves to the gardens of Torre de Belen, where several events take place. .
Speeches by the political union of UGT president Lucinda Damaso and UGT general secretary Mario Murao are scheduled for the morning in Belém.
Last year, the UGT marked Labor Day with a conference in Lisbon on “Unionism and Youth” and “The Challenges of the World of Work”, and in the previous two years it has celebrated the date practically due to the coronavirus pandemic. 19 pandemic.
May 1, International Workers’ Day, has its origins in Chicago 137 years ago, when a day of struggle was held to reduce the working day to eight hours, which was brutally suppressed by the authorities of the United States. America, which killed dozens of workers and sentenced four union leaders to the gallows.