100,000 workers march in Lisbon for pensions

Portuguese trade union leaders said more than 100,000 persons marched for three hours from the main Rossio Square in downtown Lisbon to the government palace Oct. 12 in a national protest against the most severe cuts to social services and pensions since the April 25, 1974, revolution that overthrew Portugal’s four-decade-old fascist regime.

Lisbon, Oct. 12. Protest defends social programs. Photo: Avante/Jorge Cabral

Along with the main trade union federation (CGTP), the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Left Block (BE) mobilized for and participated in the action. The PCP has been organizing for months on this issue, also pointing out that the minimum wage of 385 Euros ($456) per month is inadequate, as well as the minimum pension of about 150 Euros. The unions are demanding an increase in the minimum wage and pensions and a halt to closings of medical clinics and schools.

As in the U.S., governments throughout the European Union are attempting to enforce social-service cutbacks in a drive to increase capitalist profits. Especially hard hit are workers in the poorer countries like Portugal, but they are also well-organized and combative.

In an editorial comment on the new Portuguese-language Marxist Web site Odiario.info, which just opened to the public Oct. 16, the O Diario editors wrote: “Prime Minister Jose Sócrates arrogantly answered the protest in the Assembly of the Republic, insisting he will push the cutback policy forward and invoking his absolute majority in the Parliament. He is behaving like an enemy of the people.”

“The situation created will inevitably lead to an intensification of tensions in Portuguese society. The representatives of the ruling class refuse to take heed that the workers are taking the role of actors in the streets. They showed a consciousness of their own power, and reaffirmed their decision to refuse the future that big capital intends to impose upon them.

“History teaches us that in confrontations like the one outlined here, the people, in the medium or long range, will be victorious against the forces of reaction. Last April the French workers took to the streets in gigantic demonstrations and showed that it was possible to force those wielding power to cancel a reactionary law approved by the legislature and already promulgated by the president of the republic.”

“The Sócrates government should keep that example in mind.” (Odiario.info)

The unions have planned a two-day strike, no date set yet, to continue the struggle.

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