The BE coordinator, Catarina Martins, demanded this Tuesday that workers at Siaco, in São João da Madeira, be given access to unemployment benefits and “attacked all responsibilities” to the bosses who closed the factory without any notice.
“The company has not informed the workers about anything, the door is just closed, they don’t even have a document to access unemployment benefits,” said Catarina Martins during the morning.
It concerns the situation of a hundred workers at Siaco, in São João da Madeira, with whom the blockista leader wanted to show solidarity, in an action that was finally included in the program of the parliamentary days of the BE, which end this Tuesday at Aveiro district.
“We’re talking about people who earn the national minimum wage, there are people here, who I’ve talked to, who have worked here for over 40 years, couples, who both work here, work here for decades and decades, and the bosses decide close the door and run away and they don’t even get papers for unemployment benefits, at a time when prices are so high and house prices are rising, these people don’t know what to do with their lives,” defended Catarina Martins.
According to the bloc’s leader, the immediate priorities are “access to unemployment benefits” for workers and “that all responsibilities be assigned” to the factory owners.
BE informed the Working Conditions Authority (ACT), with which it met on Monday, and put questions in writing to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.
In this question, they ask the government about the measures it will take to “ensure that workers have access to unemployment benefits in February” and whether ACT has “taken all necessary steps to hold the company accountable”.
The blockers want to know whether “authorities under the Department of Labor were aware of the insolvency process” and “what assessment has been made of this process”.
For Catarina Martins, “this disrespect for those who work is absolutely unacceptable and one of the worst problems the country has”.
“The workers are the ones who create wealth. The bosses of this company, who leave workers out in the cold at the door, are certainly not earning the national minimum wage and everything they have was produced by these people who are here,” he underlined.
Source: DN
