The Portuguese Warehouse and Service Workers’ Union (STGSSP) felt this Thursday that the €240 emergency support announced by the government was too late and reflected a lack of strategy to lift vulnerable families out of poverty.
“As a much needed measure, given the current situation, it is already too late and reflects a series of misguided strategies on the part of the government, which refuses to consistently confront the increase in poverty in Portugal and lacks a fundamental solution: to pull the most vulnerable families out of poverty, preferring to keep these families in hostage to possible budget surpluses to make this type of concrete support possible,” the union said in a statement.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister António Costa announced in an interview with Visão magazine a €240 emergency allowance for one million families receiving minimum benefits or using the social energy tariff.
The measure was approved this Thursday by the Council of Ministers.
António Costa, in the same interview, believes that this measure “corresponds to a very large effort, taking into account the evolution of inflation in the second half of the year.”
The STGSSP, on the other hand, “rejects a revenue strategy that makes workers hostage to budget surpluses or pawns of propaganda strategies.”
For the union, “not bonuses of 240 euros from the government of Antonio Costa, 350 euros from Pingo Doce or 500 euros from Modelo Continente solve the epidemic of low wages that undermine the economic recovery of the country, but wage increases. that enable workers to sustainably manage their family budget without the pressure of inevitable financial distress as a result of unstable wages.”