Amid growing poverty, unemployment

Portugal shut down as 3 million workers strike

Published Dec 5, 2010 10:16 PM

During the 10 days Workers World visited Portugal starting Oct. 23, the working class and progressive movements there were preparing for two major actions.

They planned an anti-war protest for Nov. 20. That day 30,000 people marched against the summit of the NATO powers in Lisbon, where leaders of the major imperialist countries in Europe and North America plotted to use the former anti-Soviet alliance to police the world for the imperialist banks and corporations.

And they planned for a general strike on Nov. 24. It was the first massive workers’ action in Portugal in recent years to include both public and private sector workers, workers with job security and those whose jobs might be at risk. It was to answer the growing poverty among workers and the unemployed while corporate and banking profits are up.

The strike issues were similar to those workers have been facing throughout Europe, especially in the poorer countries. Through the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, European big capital has been attacking workers’ wages and government benefits with the pretext of cutting state budget deficits.

In Portugal, according to the main labor federation, the CGTP-IN, “The general strike is against: the so-called austerity measures; cuts in wages of public administration workers and workers from public enterprises and the general loss of purchasing power of all workers; the rise in the cost of living; the bosses’ attacks on workers’ rights; the blockade of collective bargaining; the cuts in social protection, freezing of pensions for 3.5 million pensioners and cuts or elimination of children’s allowances for 1.5 million children and youngsters; and workers’ and people’s impoverishment and growing inequalities.” (grevegeral.net)

Portugal is one of the poorest of the West European countries and one with extremely unequal incomes. Its population is about 11 million, with about 5.6 million in the work force — some 10 percent are officially unemployed.

Most participation in decades

This is the union leadership’s assessment of the Nov. 24 general strike:

“The CGTP-IN considers that the general strike was an extraordinary success. With the participation of over 3 million workers, it was undoubtedly the largest ever trade union strike in our country. The strike was transversal, with enormous work stoppages, both in the public and private sectors, having involved workers of all professional categories.

“There was an outstanding participation in the transport sector, particularly with the total closure of all civil aviation and ports activity in the Portuguese mainland and islands, as well as massive participation (in some cases 100 percent) in the public and private transport companies, in all major cities and across the whole country. The participation was also particularly high in education, health, local government and in the manufacturing industry, in several regions.”

The CGTP-IN reports that of 553 flights scheduled at the airports that day, “not one took off.” (grevegeral.net)

The editors at the Marxist website odiario.info added these observations:

“Everyone at work, and throughout the country, participated: workers, employees, intellectual workers, artists and other cultural workers, men, women, youth. Workers in jobs without contract, who are targets of the most violent pressure and extortion, defied their precarious situation as shown, for example, in the significant participation in the supermarkets. ...

“Many thousands of workers struck for their first time in this amazing day of struggle. They will not forget, indeed, this day they took their place in the long struggle for the emancipation of labor. ...

“The overwhelming reality was a country brought to a standstill by the will of its workers. Following a different policy and program, the same workers can bring the country out of the quagmire to which the right-wing policy has brought it.”

The most thorough coverage of the strike was in Avante, the weekly newspaper of the Portuguese Communist Party, which was the major party also giving strongest support to the strikers. PCP General Secretary Jerónimo de Sousa called the strike “a victory over resignation and conformity” and said it “confirmed the great value of struggle.”

On Nov. 26, the Socialist Party government, with the backing of the rightist parties and the Portuguese bosses and bankers, defied the Portuguese workers and passed the austerity budget. If they dared to challenge the working class after that magnificent show of unity and struggle in the general strike, it can only be because they — the Portuguese rulers — feel the support and the insistence of the European bankers at their backs.

What this means is that even as powerful an action as the Nov. 24 general strike must be seen as a step toward further battles in a long class war. “The struggle continues,” said many Portuguese workers’ leaders following the strike.