“Pravo” and “PS” generally fail PKP’s proposals to change labor legislation

This Wednesday, Parliament rejected several PKP proposals to change labor laws in a general vote that, according to parties to the left of the PS, was a test of possible post-legislative agreements.

The proposals in question included abolishing the expiry of collective bargaining, reintroducing more favorable treatment for workers, increasing overtime pay by 50% for the first hour and 75% for subsequent hours on weekdays, or even limiting the use of the shift system. or working at night.

All these measures failed due to votes against PS, PSD and IL and votes for PCP, BE, PAN and Livre. Chega voted against restoring more favorable treatment for workers and ending the expiration of collective bargaining, as well as for diplomas covering shift work and night work, as well as increasing overtime.

At the start of the debate that preceded this vote, PCP MP Alfredo Maia called on the PS to approve these measures, asking what kind of “accountability” the socialists intend to give to workers, “after they have spent several legislative sessions destroying their legitimate expectations ” and “spent the absolute majority.”

“This is an opportunity, especially for the PS, to amend and make viable the bills that the PCP is introducing again,” he said.

In response to this intervention, PS deputy Gilberto Años said that “significant strides” had been made in this legislature in protecting workers, namely through the approval of the so-called “Decent Work Agenda”, and asked Alfredo Maia if he thought that “ It is important to check the stability and predictability of labor laws,” given that they have recently been changed.

Socialist MP Fernando José also defended the balance of executive power, highlighting that in the last eight years, measures such as the replacement of 35 hours a week in public administration, wage cuts and subsidies for Christmas and holidays, in addition to densification, have been implemented.” balance of labor relations.”

This intervention earned him direct criticism from BE MP José Soeiro, who left the Socialist MP with some advice: “If the PS wants to develop solutions for the future, instead of self-praise, it should give a critical assessment to the absolute majority.”

“Choosing a side of work is not rhetoric or an abstraction, these are concrete decisions, and we will see what concrete decisions the PS will make this Wednesday during these debates,” he said.

PSD MP Nuno Carvalho thanked the PCP for the “support it gives to the PS” by scheduling this debate, stressing that “it is fundamental to understand whether the PS, which in the past has drawn red lines with the PCP” regarding labor legislation, now intends to remove them , to “resurrect the “cunning””.

The possibility of re-issuing the “invention” was one of the PSD’s main points of attack, with MP Joana Barata López questioning “where is the stability of the left” if the PCP and BE continue to consider diplomas that the PS rejects and which caused controversy during the “invention”.

The leader of the Chegi parliament, Pedro Pinto, believed that the PKP “does not have any morals to talk about work” since between 2015 and 2021 “it approved PS budgets” and held it responsible for the “largest ordinary tax burden” and because “four million Portuguese are on the verge of poverty.”

Regarding IL, MP Carla Castro criticized the PCP proposals, believing that “flexibility and adaptability should be the rule” in the labor market and that “rigidity leads to instability and harms dynamism and opportunity.”

PAN’s sole deputy, Ines de Souza Real, believes there is still a “long way to go” in the labor market and has pledged to reintroduce proposals such as strengthening parental rights, menstrual leave for three or more periods of leisure and rest for women. workers.

Livre’s only MP, Rui Tavares, ridiculed the fact that the right “threatens the return of the geringons”, emphasizing that it was the government that “has given the Portuguese people the greatest satisfaction” and said that in his opinion it is “very good that in the next elections there will be a choice between more rights and fewer rights at work is on the table and at the ballot box.”