Portugal: General strike challenges anti-worker policies
By
John Catalinotto
Published Jun 11, 2007 12:12 AM
Portuguese workers shut down much of the local transport, government services
and schools in the country and seriously cut services in hospitals and
production in private corporations during a 24-hour political general strike on
May 30. The strike of 1.4 million was the latest step in a series of protests
against the government’s anti-worker policies, actions which included
huge demonstrations in October 2006 and last March 2.
PCP leader Jerónimo de Sousa meets with striking workers.
Photo: Avante
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The CGTP-IN, the most militant of the labor confederations and one considered
closest to the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), called the strike, which was
directed at the “neo-liberal” policies of the two-year-old
government led by Premier José Sócrates of the Socialist Party
(PS).
Like most of the parties in Europe that call themselves socialist, the PS has
abandoned any connection with real socialism or even with winning reformist
concessions for the working class. The PS has been administering the government
on behalf of the biggest capitalists, closing healthcare clinics and schools,
removing safeguards that protected workers’ jobs and opening the road for
greater corporate profits.
At a news conference on the evening of the strike, Jerónimo de Sousa,
general secretary of the PCP, called the action “the greatest day of
struggle that this government has ever had to confront.” He added that
the strike “constituted a tremendous expression of the deep grounds of
discontent and popular protest and a clear affirmation of the need for
change” in government policy. (Avante, June 1)
Economic statistics illuminate the reasons for the discontent. Some 8 percent
of the workers are unemployed, the highest figure in 20 years. In addition,
Portugal has one of the greatest gaps in income between rich and poor.
“The wealthiest one-fifth of the country’s 10.2 million people hold
around 46 percent of the national wealth, while the poorest one-fifth live in
poverty.” (IPS, May 30)
As de Sousa put it, “The situation of the country has reached an
unbearable point for the workers and the general population.” And
that’s why “the May 30 general strike is a great strike, with a
strong participation in the entire country and in all sectors and
activities.”
It’s rare that a general strike is 100 percent effective. In this one,
workers faced the threat of losing their jobs, a hostile government and a
negative climate of high unemployment. Also, the top leadership of the
UGT—the union confederation closest to the PS—tried to undermine
the strike, although individual unions in the UGT supported it. Under those
conditions, it is significant that such a high proportion of the working class
participated.
But the PCP leader had to make his case energetically, because the government
tried to use spin and the collaboration of the corporate media to underplay the
effectiveness of the strike.
The editors of the progressive Portuguese website, Odiario.info, responded to
an attempt by the government to claim that only 13 percent participated in the
public sector and less in the private:
“The images transmitted by the television stations showed that these
assertions were ridiculous. The metro in Lisbon and the suburb across the Tagus
River stopped. The majority of the courts and thousands of schools did not
function at all. Local governments were almost completely paralyzed. In the
large hospitals only minimum service was available.”
After naming a list of the larger plants that were shut, the editorial
continued: “The government lied to the country. ... The perverse media,
an accomplice of the regime, led a disinformation campaign that was unable to
hide the reality. Through the general strike, the Portuguese people have
condemned the neo-liberal policies of the most aggressive government that the
people have had to put up with since April 25,”—the day in 1974
when a decades-old fascist regime was overthrown.
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