The general strike that began at midnight today, Nov. 24, 2010 has been shutting the country. The initial scenario, accounted for around 8 o’clock in the morning, shows a great adherence, more than 80% and achieves the economy key sectors. Thus, it is proven the great anger of workers and the majority of Portuguese population against the austerity measures adopted by the Government of the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Jose Socrates and his willingness to fight against them.
Thus, workers are aware of what has been going on and are not to be fooled by the huge propaganda machine assembled by the government, the bourgeoisie and its media to make them believe it is inevitable the wage cuts, the freezing of pensions, the withdrawal of family benefits, the end of school support, the increase in VAT and the IRS, the rising cost of transport and medicines, the privatization of public enterprises, the disinvestment in health, education and other measures against the workers and poor people included in the State Budget for 2011.
According to information from unions, CGT and UGT, the scenario is as follows: dockworkers, pilots and maritime traffic controllers paralyze all ports in the country. In the transport of passengers sector the adherence to the strike is also very large (about 85%). In the CP (trains), Lisbon Subway (100%), Porto Subway (90%), Rivers Transports Services (Soflusa Transtejo) over 80%, at Carris (Lisbon public transport), at private companies, etc… The strike adherence is almost of 100% at all airports in the country with adhesion of ground staff, air staff and air traffic controllers. Garbage has not been collected in dozens of municipalities, some with 100% adherence. Autoeuropa (VW), the largest Portuguese industrial park, is shut. Its 3,600 workers have joined the strike. In the Health sector the adherence is also high, especially the health centers and hospitals, like the ones at the University of Coimbra, Garcia da Horta, in Almada, Santa Maria (92%), in Lisbon, among others. They ensure only the minimum services required. At the CTT (Post Office), workers of Cabo Ruivo (mail carriers) have picketed to prevent private trucks from passing as they were trying to break the strike. They were repressed by PSP intervention body and assured that there would not be distribution of letters around the country. The schools are stuck with adhesion of teachers and staff.
IMF is at Portugal door
There are plenty of reasons to call a general strike – the first since May 2007 and the second to be called jointly by the two unions, UGT and CGT. This year alone, Portuguese people was bombarded with three austerity plans (the SGPs,- the Stability and Growth Program), among which was the last State Budget for 2011, similar to those applied in Greece, Spain, Britain and Ireland, where the account of the crisis was submitted.
All these measures will only exacerbate the recession and increase the unemployment, the precariousness and the poverty in the country. According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), there have never been so many unemployed in Portugal: in the third quarter of this year, the official unemployment rate was 10.9%, which means 609,400 people without jobs. The unemployment rate among youth rose 23.4%, which means 99,000 workers with less than 25 years without a job.
The government justifies its SGPs by the need to lower the public deficit from 9.3% of GDP in 2009 to 7.3% this year and 4.6% in 2011 as the imposition of the European Commission. In fact, the goal of Portuguese and European bourgeoisie when applying their austerity plans is to unload the economic crisis on the backs of workers (thereby saving the big bourgeoisie and banking) withdrawing the workers’ rights won after the Second World War. To destroy the so-called welfare state and thereby make the EU economy more competitive from the capitalist standpoint so that the bourgeoisie is able to dispute the world markets in better conditions.
No SGPs, as it is increasingly clear, will prevent the coming of the IMF to Portugal or a help request from the Portuguese government to the European Stability Fund. Interest of Portuguese debt continued to rise even after adoption of the SGP 3 (State Budget for 2011), overcoming the barrier of 7% and putting Portugal on the way to Greece and most recently Ireland. The governments of both countries (Greece and Ireland) agreed to request help from these two entities in order to save their extremely indebted banking system which was in danger of collapse (or directly collapsing, as is the case of Ireland), but, especially, not to undermine the German and French capital (in the case of Greece ) and English capital (in the case of Ireland) invested in these two countries – Greece and Ireland.
These “aids” are not for the workers and the people, on the contrary, both in Greek and in the Irish case they serve to save the banks, especially those of major European imperialist countries, namely France, Germany and Britain. In exchange for the Banking system bailout, governments approve even tougher measures against the workers and people lying to them and saying that these measures are inevitable, that without them the country will go bankrupt, painting, finally, a catastrophic scenario that actually exists for millions of families increasingly poor, unemployed or receiving a miserable salary and forced to emigrate or to depend on the increasingly scarce state assistance.
This is the prognosis for Portugal, and Spain also, if workers do not keep up their fight against the government of PS and its ally, PSD. Representatives of big business, these two political parties, in agreement, want to destroy the country in order to save from bankruptcy their “leaders”, – the Portuguese banking sector – (whose debt to the European Central Bank is about 30% of its GDP, or nearly 50 000 million euro) – the euro and the European imperialism.
The general strike is a response to this project, a struggle that should not stop today. There must be a hard and continuous struggle in order to avoid that Portuguese workers pay for the banking crisis. This struggle cannot be limited to one day only nor be confined to Portugal. The bourgeoisie plan is for the whole Europe, and it is within Europe that this hard worker struggle should also have its continuity. A European general strike should begin to be organized, and a plan of struggles should be implemented so that the bourgeoisie and Socrates government be daily confronted. This struggle plan shall include a general strike, this time with street protests demonstrations, which will give even more visibility and strength to the fight.
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Translated by Wilma Olmo Corrêa
