Accuses rail unions of having “no openness”, waging “strike empty of objectives”
The Government has called on rail unions to call off the nationwide strike that has brought the country’s service today to a complete standstill.
Through infrastructure minister Miguel Pinto Luz, the caretaker executive with limited powers of manoeuvre due to elections in less than two weeks’ time, stresses this is a strike that is “empty of objectives”. The government has already presented a proposal for salary increases worth €5.75 million, said the minister, which has received no response.
“The Government has shown complete good faith, but, up until now, there has been no openness on the part of the unions,” he lamented at a press conference in Lisbon as unions prepared to ‘down tools’ and create “severe disruptions to traffic” from today until next week (May 14).
This strike action, backed by a number of unions in the sector, has had no ‘minimum services’ defined by the Arbitration Court of the Economic and Social Council – thus today’s ‘absolute chaos’ in which nothing is running, and citizens who rely on the rail service to get to work (indeed, to get anywhere) are left desperately trying to find other solutions.
According to FECTRANS, the Federation of Transport and Communications Unions – represented by José Manuel Oliveira – is that the government ostensibly backed the management of CP – Comboios de Portugal to negotiate a deal with unions – which it did – but then said it “could not give authorisation” for the deal to go through.
CP has confirmed that zero trains are running today. The company is due to give a statement later today. According to reports, the strike will have a “special impact” on trains today and tomorrow because a greater number of unions are joining the strike over these two days.
Coming as this disruption does days after the whole country was plunged into a power blackout will weigh on citizens’ perception of how Portugal is being run – and thus could colour voting intentions in an election which most agree ‘could go either way’. ND
Source material: LUSA
