The two biggest trade union confederations, which together represent around one million workers, staged a general strike against government austerity measures, causing disruption to public transport, flights and hospitals. The walkout was their fourth joint protest in 25 years. UGT-P and CGT-P want the country’s centre-right government to ease off austerity measures that they say are contributing to a downward economic spiral and surging unemployment rate. The latest plans include increasing the working time of state employees to 40 hours a week from 35, increasing their monthly pension deductions while lowering the pension entitlements and laying off some 50,000 government workers out of the total of about 583,000.
English: http://www.france24.com/en/20130627-portugal-brought-standstill-workers-strike ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/portugal-general-strike-austerity ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.