By Gil Garcia, MAS-Portugal
Whether there were three million workers who went on strike is not certain. Let us imagine for a moment that it was “only” one million or one and a half million: there is no doubt that the general strike was big. The joint call of the two central unions (CGTP and UGT) and of several independent unions (among which STOP stands out in the education sector) contributed to the success of the monumental national protest. But what helped the most, without intending to, was the brutality of the “Anti-Labor Package”.
The right-wing AD (Democratic Alliance) government, since it became aware that it has an absolute majority against workers -since it amounts to the votes of the deputies of the extreme right (i.e. Chega-Enough) plus the IL (Liberal Initiative) to attack the rights of workers-, dared to launch proposals which could force workers to be practically slaves of their jobs. In fact, the bosses and capitalists could, from now on, force everyone to work 50 hours a week, and if anyone complains they can be fired. Even if the courts rule in favor of the illegality of the decision, even so -see the absurdity- the bosses will not be obliged to reinstate them. In addition to these absurd proposals, the government and the extreme right wing know that there will be strikes and, therefore, new and drastic restrictions to our right to strike are present in this damned package.
On the other hand, this general strike was not limited to the public sector, as many private sector companies were forced to strike because the workers decided to do so. In addition, there were picket lines, demonstrations and protest rallies in several cities around the country. Those in Lisbon and Porto were quite significant.
From MAS (Movimiento Alternativa Socialista) we consider that new general strikes will be necessary, even bigger ones. In January, either on elections or not (since these “issues” are never decided in the elections but in the streets), the trade union centers should CALL FOR TWO DAYS OF GENERAL STRIKE and continue in this way until the government completely withdraws the current labor “package” proposal. The struggle must continue. We must not give the government or to the extreme right time. In the process of building new actions of struggle, count on us to help raise a new activist and revolutionary left this country needs. Join us.
