In a statement, the union said that Super Bock Bebibas “is blackmailing workers not to join the strike called for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 August, threatening them with a 30 percent pay cut,” corresponding to the stopover allowance.

Sintab details that several of the company’s workers “have denounced” being directly approached, either by their superiors, or by senior members of the human resources department, “threatening them with the full cut of the stop-work subsidy foreseen in the recently signed continuous labour agreements”.

In question is, according to the union, a clause of the continuous labour agreement that both the Workers’ Committee and Sintab consider “abusive and inadmissible”.

In the evaluation of the union, the inclusion of any clause, in any agreement, that deprives the workers of the right to fight for the improvement of their rights, salaries and working conditions, “besides being obscene and illegal, represents a social aberration that should shame those responsible”.

The six-day strike is, according to the union, “a result of the company’s unwillingness to ensure pay rises in 2021, consistent with the distribution of profits by shareholders, and has nothing to do with continuous labour”.

Contacted by Lusa news agency, an official source from the company said that Super Bock Bebidas “refutes” Sintab’s accusation and “vehemently repudiates the allegations made because they are manifestly untrue.”

The company also states that “it has always and will always act in strict compliance with the law. In this, as in previous strikes, the company has always respected the workers’ decision”.