“CGTP-IN has not signed the so-called medium-term agreement to improve incomes, wages and competitiveness, nor is it following the measures recommended for its strengthening. The analysis we are making today of the evolution of the situation of workers, framed in The commitment that is uncompromising for their rights and interests, confirms the reasons that led to the decision of the CGTP-IN a year ago,” said the trade union center in a statement.
The government today signed the so-called strengthening the medium-term agreement to improve incomes, wages and competitiveness, increasing the value of the national minimum wage to 820 euros for next year.
The signing of this agreement – which takes place days before the presentation to parliament, on Tuesday, of the proposal for the 2024 state budget (OE2024) – left out the CGTP (which had no longer signed the pact signed last year) . now revised) and the CIP.
In its justification for non-compliance, CGTP-IN states that collective downsizing “continues to be attacked” and that maintaining certain standards in labor law allows “perpetuation of the causes that led the country to the model of low wages and insecurity’.
“The 5.1% included in the agreement to increase wages in this year of economic growth results in an increase in the loss of purchasing power of workers (the Bank of Portugal has forecast 5 in the Harmonized Consumer Product Price Index for 2023 .4% put forward). ) and in some cases loss of rights,” he warns.
In this sense, CGTP-IN states that “a general and significant increase is urgent, possible and absolutely necessary, both in the national minimum wage (910 euros from January 2024) and in all salaries”.
“A general and significant increase in salaries by at least 15%, never less than 150 euros, far from the values established in the signed ‘strengthening’, as well as the addition of tax exemptions for employers, when necessary to making large companies pay taxes are other reasons that lead us not to sign the so-called reinforcement,” they justify.
The document signed today presents 54 points, based on five axes: increasing wages, attracting and retaining talent, non-salary income for employees, measures related to taxes and corporate financing, and administrative simplification and contextual costs.
The strengthening of the agreement includes measures such as the increase of the minimum wage to 820 euros in 2024, the already announced measures regarding the IRS Jovem, the phased reduction of income tax in the field of the IRS and the update of the brackets next year or the creation of tax and contribution incentives for the provision of housing by the employer.
The document also provides for the definition with the civil construction sector of an “investment pact and simplification commitments, to promote the construction of housing for the middle class” – whether for rental or own housing, or to strengthen the extraordinary circumstances. updating of family benefits.
In agriculture, the agreement provides for the maintenance of the VAT exemption in 2024 on fertilisers, fertilizers and soil improvers, as well as flour, grains and seeds for feeding livestock, poultry and other animals.
Tourism will see an increase in resources to promote Portugal as a destination “to counter seasonality”, according to Prime Minister António Costa, as well as “the extension of the reduced rate for restaurants with drinks”.
Source: DN
