General Secretary of the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), Isabel Camarinha, said on Monday that Portugal would “get out of poverty” “by no means small” at the start of the traditional 1st May demonstration.
“In order to develop the country, we cannot continue this path of impoverishment, this is not by small measures, this is by raising wages and pensions, with taxation of profits, with price regulation, it is necessary to change the distribution of poverty, and the government must understand that you cannot continue to go down path of impoverishment and underdevelopment,” said Isabelle Camarinha at the start of a march that leads demonstrators from Martim Moniz to the Alameda in Lisbon.
Thousands of people marched down Avenida Almirante Reis this afternoon carrying placards and props criticizing government policies and advocating better conditions for workers, but there were those who chose to stay in the shadows to escape Lisbon’s heat. and enliven those present with the music of the “Socialist International” played on the flute.
Among the most picturesque figures was also a demonstrator dressed as “Ze Povigno”, or two others, who followed at the start of the parade an orchestra dressed like a boss, wearing a suit and carrying many giant banknotes representing the “great capital”, with supermarket brands inscribed on hats.
“Workers are experiencing increasingly difficult conditions and we must organise, unite and fight to demand answers and solutions to the problems we face,” stressed a worker representative during a demonstration in which they read posters like “Minimum wage 850 euros or “The cost of living is rising, people can’t stand it.”
According to Isabel Camarinha, the good macroeconomic and labor indicators presented by the government are not felt by the workers.
“It cannot be said that the economy is growing if wages are not growing, if workers and pensioners are getting poorer; the results can be very good, but there are no concrete measures to solve the problems of the people,” criticized the trade unionist, who is still giving the closing speech of the demonstration in Alameda in the afternoon.