Thousands of public and private sector workers from across the country demonstrated in Lisbon on Saturday to demand wage increases and measures to deal with the rising cost of living. Throughout 2022, the inflation rate in Portugal reached a historically high level of 7.8%, the highest in 30 years.
Called by the Portuguese General Confederation of Workers (CGTP), this demonstration comes the day after a nationwide strike by civil servants to demand wage increases that has impacted garbage collection, schools and hospitals. The CGTP, the largest Portuguese trade union confederation, is also calling for price controls on basic necessities, help to curb the rise in rents and mortgages, and measures to combat precariousness.
“Wage increases of at least 10%”
“The cost of living is becoming unbearable” or even “it is unacceptable to be impoverished through work,” chanted the demonstrators who demonstrated on the main street of the Portuguese capital. “The situation is getting really difficult! ‘ Inacio Catela, a 61-year-old sales agent from Torres Vedras, about sixty kilometers north of Lisbon, told AFP. “There is an urgent need to upgrade our jobs, our careers and our salaries,” said Raquel Silva, 42, an administrator at a hospital in the center of the country, further in the procession.
“We are asking for an increase in wages, but a real increase, higher than inflation, which will make it possible to regain and strengthen the purchasing power of families,” declared the Secretary General of the CGTP, Isabel Camarinha, at the end of the parade. , who addressed the protesters. “We want wage increases of at least 10% and never less than 100 euros for all employees,” she said.