Covilhã, Portugal, May 8, 2025 (Lusa) – The Socialist Party secretary-general said on Thursday that the "insult to democracy" that he accused the prime minister of making with the "threat to change the strike law" due to the CP strike, was 'unacceptable".

"What the prime minister is doing in the middle of a strike is blackmailing, threatening Portuguese workers with a change to the strike law. This is unacceptable and I want to say that they will not pass," Pedro Nuno Santos replied to journalists during the start of a street rally in Covilhã.

For the PS leader, this statement by the prime minister is an insult to democracy.

"There is a strike going on with 100% participation. The government failed in the negotiations and now wants to blame the unions, the parties," he condemned, admitting that he “did not want to believe” what he heard.

In Pedro Nuno Santos" opinion, this position of the PSD president “is an affront to democracy, it is an affront to one of the greatest achievements of April, which is the right of workers to organise to claim their rights”.

"It reveals authoritarianism, it reveals disrespect for workers" rights, it reveals disrespect for one of the most basic rights of a state governed by the rule of law," he said.

For the PS leader, Montenegro can only complain about his own government.

"A year ago, the PS ran a campaign with constant protests, for example, against the security forces. Never in their lives would they hear a PS leader say that order must be restored, that the strike law must be reviewed," he said.

Reiterating an idea he had already defended the day before in Évora, that this 100% strike was impossible with union leaders alone, Pedro Nuno Santos argued that "a strike is resolved with a lot of dialogue".

"How I managed to resolve the strike by drivers of dangerous goods [in 2029]. That requires dialogue, work, it is not achieved with attacks on democracy," he emphasised, noting that “one of the greatest victories of April is the right to strike”.

In the opinion of the opposition leader, it is "unthinkable, unacceptable that a prime minister" wants to "protest against the right to strike" because "he is bothered by a strike in the middle of a campaign," pointing out that a year ago, when the PS was in government, Montenegro "was not bothered by the protests that existed" against the previous government.

The PSD president and prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said today that "political, partisan and electoral influences" prevented the CP strike from being avoided. Changing the law to balance the right to strike with other rights may be necessary.

"My conviction and the conviction of the members of the government who intervened in this process is that, clearly, political, partisan and electoral influences ultimately did not prevent what was the normal outcome of a negotiation process," said Montenegro.

According to the unions, the CP strike, which will continue until 14 May, was called against the imposition of wage increases "that do not restore purchasing power," for "collective bargaining for decent wage increases," and for "the implementation of the agreement to restructure wage scales, under the terms negotiated and agreed."

The strike had a particular impact between Tuesday and today due to the larger number of unions (14) that joined the strike on these days.

The Arbitration Court decided these strikes do not have minimum services.

JF/ADB // ADB.

Lusa