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In autumn 1999, as happens every year, Portugal's main trade union confederations, CGTP and UGT, issued their demands for the coming bargaining round and for the revision of the statutory national minimum wage.
As is customary at this time of the year (PT9810199F), in autumn 1999 the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses, CGTP) and the General Worker's Union (União Geral de Trabalhadores, UGT) put forward their overall demands for sectoral collective bargaining in the coming year. This year, the announcement of the unions' platforms coincided with the swearing in of a new government and the inauguration of the recently-elected parliament, following October's general election (PTN).
The union confederations' demands have been made in a context which they see as being characterised by:
- an improvement in the overall national economic situation and in the financial position of companies;
- an increase in productivity;
- the fact that wage restraint policies are being opposed by unions in many European countries. It is claimed that such policies act as a brake on productivity increases, vocational training and economic growth; and
- the fact that attempts to bring Portuguese wages more into line with European averages have not been successful. In order to move towards harmonisation, wage increases should have been 1.5 percentage points higher than the European average, but have, in fact, only been 0.8 points higher over the past six years. At the same time, the tax burden on Portuguese companies is far lower than the European average.
CGTP and UGT have thus made the following pay and income proposals:
- a increase in wages of between 5% and 6%, in the light of an average productivity increase forecast at 3%;
- an increase in the statutory national minimum wage; and
- an increase in minimum pensions of between 10% and 14%.
The trade union confederations' demands also address:
- greater fairness in the tax system;
- reduction in working time - implementation of the maximum 40-hour working week and concerted initiatives to prepare for a 35-hour week and five weeks' paid annual leave;
- improvement in social security benefits and assurance of the financial viability of the social protection system;
- more attention to health and safety at the workplace;
- employment and training - a review of macroeconomic policy that will help combat precarious employment, along with more vigorous labour inspection initiatives to ensure compliance with labour laws and a significant improvement in the quality of working conditions; and
- concrete moves to promote free collective bargaining and to intensify dialogue and concertation initiatives.
When the government released its proposal for an increase in the national minimum wage, which was not far off the unions' proposal, this sparked a debate. On the employers' side, the Portuguese Confederation of Commerce (Confederação Portuguesa do Comércio, CCP), as in previous years, took the position that there is no need to establish a national minimum wage at all.