There are 365 kilometers that separate the center of Guimarães from Marquês de Pombal, in Lisbon. That was the distance José da Cunha, 75 years old, traveled to be in the capital on Saturday. The background noise leaves no doubt at this point as to what gets you there. The cries of protest, accompanied by the drums, echo in the center of Lisbon. Several requests are heard: “We want peace, bread and housing”; “the cost of living is rising, people can’t stand it”; “to move the country forward, the salary must increase”.
The concerns that bring the former electrician from Guimarães to Lisbon are the same. It is not the first time he has attended such a demonstration, he says. But “the lack of respect for those who work” motivated him to go out again. “I have worked for several years, always with low wages. I have suffered from the expectation, because the pension is now also low and the cost of living is unbearable,” he complains. Emphasizing that he is not an “expert in economics”, José da Cunha believes that the government’s argument against raising wages (it would exacerbate the inflationary crisis, according to the executive) is not an excuse. “It is not by, for example, withdrawing wages or raising fuel prices that this will recover. On the contrary, the economy will stagnate if there is a lack of money.” And set prices for essential goods, for example? “That required a different government. This one – and the others that preceded it – don’t want a table. They want capital to become more and more capital and the poor to be poorer. And we’ve been here for a long time.”
This Saturday’s demonstration (the day after the civil servants’ strike), organized by the CGTP, had two meeting points: one for civil servants (Amoreiras); another for private sector workers (Saldanha). The two parties converged and then joined Marquês de Pombal, from where they descended to Praça dos Restauradores.
At the age of 30, João Canas is a candidate for a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Aveiro. Younger than Joseph, but just as concerned. “There are a range of political responses that are not enough and should be given to certain issues,” he says. As? “Houses, low wages or the valuation of the SNS, for example.”
“The answers they give us are always the same: either it exacerbates the spiral of inflation, or there is no money because you have to pay a debt that is totally unreasonable and whose limit lies in what the European Central Bank wanted. That yardstick has always been used as justification”, criticizes. Listing prices, he said, would be “part of the solution,” but it wouldn’t solve everything.
“They don’t need support, they need salaries”
Various political interventions took place for the Restauradores – in Marquês de Pombal and all along Avenida da Liberdade.
The first was for Bloco de Esquerda, coordinated by Catarina Martins. Still in Marquês, the bloquista leader accused the government of not fulfilling what it had promised. “It was announced that there were salary agreements for increases. Publicly an increase was announced, but what ended up increasing was the salary mass. And way below inflation,” he commented, then firing: “We need a country that respects those who work.”
Right next door, two deputies from Chega, represented at the CGTP demonstration (tradition central union traditionally influenced and associated with the PCP) by Bruno Nunes and Rui Paulo Sousa. Surprise? “There isn’t,” says the first. “Chega is not coming to a CGTP demonstration,” he clarifies, saying the party was there “next to the Portuguese people” and rejecting all charges of opportunism. Bruno Nunes criticized the government for the lack of answers and argued that more than just wage increases, “effective control” of the market is needed. At the end of the statement – which criticized the government for its lack of response – the deputies met with strong opposition from those present, including insults, and did not join the procession.
In the middle of the march, next to the Vitória Work Center, on Avenida da Liberdade, it was the PCP’s turn to speak. Considering that “the national emergency”, i.e. the salary increase, “is a fully won battle in theory”, but that “it is now necessary to put it into practice”, Paulo Raimundo made demands of the government: “Rights, dignity and respect”. “The problem is not the support. The problem is that these people work every day, they make the country work, the economy depends on them and that’s why they don’t need support, they need salaries, what they earn “, emphasized the communist leader.
In Restauradores it was Isabel Camarinha’s turn, leader of the CGTP, to intervene. In a speech of about 20 minutes (on a stage where Mário Nogueira, general secretary of Fenprof, was), the trade unionist guaranteed: “This struggle will not stop until we guarantee the increase of wages and pensions and our demands. The problems , the needs and aspirations of employees cannot be postponed”. A source for the organization did not report the number of protesters, but Isabel Camarinha pointed to “certainly more than 100,000”.
Earlier, Gonçalo Paixão had spoken on behalf of young workers, a movement within the CGTP, which also criticized the executive – “enough impoverishing work” was the motto of the intervention – and announced on March 28 to leave this movement.
Source: DN
