The people voted and the worker´s struggle confirmed that the psd/cds government was rejected.
The confirmation of the defeat inflicted today on the PSD and CDS closes a decisive stage of the e prolonged process of action and struggle of the Portuguese workers and people against the right-wing policy – which was implemented in an aggravated manner by measures of further exploitation, impoverishment and social regression – and by the affirmation of a Portugal with a future, having in the heart of its concerns the interests of the workers, people and nation.
The CGTP-IN salutes the workers and all those who fought intensive battles in the work places and streets of Portugal and who, in that way, made it possible to stop much of the onslaught of employers against workers' rights and were crucial to attain pay rises and defend jobs, giving a decisive contribution to wear out the PSD/CDS government and its political, social and electoral basis of support, culminating in the significant defeat of those parties in the October 4th General Election.
The rejection of the government programme presented in Parliament by the PSD/CDS coalition and its consequent immediate resignation, is inseparable from the immense number of workers' struggles and means a reinforced victory of the workers and people who, aspiring to a real policy change, defeated, once again the manoeuvres of big capital and forces that serve it, particularly the President of Portugal, in its attempt to perpetuate the PSD/CDS in government.
The new balance of forces in Parliament creates a new situation that results from a majority formed by the Socialist Party, the Portuguese Communist Party, the Left Block and the Party of the Greens, and is the origin of the presentation of a proposal of government of the Socialist party initiative.
This new situation requires the vigilance and action of the Portuguese workers and people in relation to vindictiveness and coup-plotting positions of the retrograde forces and of the President himself, who has shown to wish a confrontation with the rules of democracy and with Constitutional provisions, with his choice of serving the interest of big capital, instead of the interest of workers, people and nation.
In this new context of national political life, the CGTP-IN calls on the workers to strengthen their unity and their organisation in the work places, continuing their struggle as a necessary and irreplaceable requisite to defend the following immediate objectives:
· Intensify claims and collective bargaining, demanding answers to the workers' problems, namely pay rises and fight against precariousness and to defend rights, for shorter working hours and against their deregulation and the widespread improvement of working conditions;
· Demand legislative measures that fulfil workers' yearnings for a change of policy, namely: revocation of the harmful labour laws and the promotion of collective bargaining, which implies the end of the collective agreements expiry clause; the rise of the national minimum salary; the full devolution of withdrawn salaries and pensions, as well as the reinstatement of the 35-hour week of Public Employees, of robbed public holidays, vacation leave and other rights; improvement of unemployment benefits and social allowances for workers and households; reversion of privatisations in companies and sectors that are crucial for the country's development, the protection of rights and jobs; valorisation and defence of Public Education, of the National Health Service and of public, universal and solidaristic Social Security;
· Demand a new policy for the country that, placing the workers and people as the central reference for economic development, asserts the rights, gains, values and ideals of the 1974 April Revolution enshrined in the Portuguese Constitution.
With the workers, fighting for a Portugal with a future!
Lisbon, 10 December 2015