Lisbon, May 8, 2025 (Lusa) - The arbitration court of Portugal's Economic and Social Council (CES) explained on Thursday that it did not order unions to ensure minimum services during the strike by employees of rail operator CP that is taking place until 14 May because the company had warned that if traffic were reduced to 15% then the physical safety of passengers could not be guaranteed.
This clarification comes after "various news reports and controversies that have come to light regarding the various strikes at CP," explains the arbitration court of the CES - a tripartite body that oversees industrial relation in Portugal - in a statement.
The court points out that the issue is not a single strike taking place between 7 and 14 May, but rather "several strikes, called by various unions, in the exercise of the right to strike, provided for in Article 57 of the Constitution."
It also emphasises that the failure to define minimum services does not contradict case law and that there was no agreement between the company and the unions on minimum services.
In this context, the court said, it "asked CP - because this definition has to be made on a case-by-case basis, train by train - to indicate which trains would run that corresponded to 15% of the total train circulation that CP normally has in its general activity throughout the country, asking that this percentage be realised on the urban lines of Lisbon and Porto, in the periods of greatest affluence, early morning and late afternoon of those three days, and CP complied with this request."
However, it said, CP later warned that the "definition of 15% on the urban lines of Lisbon and Porto could not guarantee the physical safety of passengers, both in stations and inside the trains."
In view of this scenario, the court took the view that it was "inadvisable" to decree minimum services of 15%, "because there was a serious risk of endangering the lives and integrity of passengers, which the company said it could not guarantee."
The request for 15% of services had been seen as "the best balance between the defence of the essential core of the right to strike and the establishment of unavoidable social needs for rail transport" but as CP took the position that a reduced number of trains "would lead to the risk of an uncontrolled accumulation of people in stations and on trains" the court did not go ahead with an order.
This issue has been in the spotlight in the election campaign, particularly after the right-of-centre coalition government on Tuesday called for unions representing CP workers to call off the strike, which it argued was "empty of objectives" after it had presented a proposal for pay increases worth €5.75 million, which it said had received no response from the unions.
"There was total good faith on the part of the government, but so far there has been no openness on the part of the unions," said the minister for infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz, speaking at a press conference in Lisbon.
On Thursday, the National Union of Portuguese Railway Train Drivers (SMAQ) rejected the suggestion that the strike at CP was politically motivated and said that the government was to blame for the inconvenience caused to the population because it had failed to fulfil a previous negotiated agreement.
MES/ARO // ARO.
Lusa
