In a statement, the Union of Workers in Road and Urban Transport of Portugal (STRUP/Fectrans) says that the Board of Directors of Carris, “in desperation”, argued at the meeting at the General Directorate of Employment and Labor Relations, to define minimum services that Carnival day did not count as a working day.

“The truth is that, for legal purposes, it is not an official holiday and, if we count February 24th, the day on which the advance notice was given, until March 10th, we have 11 days”, says the STRUP note.

However, the union understood “that it is not worth wasting time in discussions about counting time”, so it withdrew the strike notice for March 11 and delivered a new 24-hour strike notice for the 18th. The union understands that it is more important to “unite all workers in the construction of a great day of struggle” and not “waste time in arguments and counter-arguments regarding the illegality or legality of the strike for March 11”.

A new general plenary session is also scheduled for the 18th for workers to decide on the “continuation of the methods that lead the CA [Board of Directors] and its shareholder, the Lisbon City Council, to provide the answers that workers need”.

According to STRUP, workers want “a real and substantial increase in wages and meal vouchers, a phased increase to 35 hours per week and the creation of a compensatory allowance for workers in fixed sectors”.

In addition, the union also wants “payment of travel expenses to transit workers without counting the ‘bonuses’”.

The strike was approved after a “great unity” plenary session held at Santo Amaro Station, in Lisbon.

“STRUP gave substance and voice to the decision taken by workers, in the last general plenary session (…) with regard to the reformulation of its proposal on financial matters, presenting the proposal for a 90 euro salary increase, with effect from January and an interim increase of 30 euros, with effect from July, as well as an increase in the meal allowance to 12.50 euros”, can be read in the document.

For STRUP, “it is completely unacceptable that the Board of Directors maintains the so-called ‘excellence award’, instead of increasing it in the salary table”.

According to the union, despite completely rejecting the proposal presented, the company was unable to “deny the simple fact that workers’ salaries are increasingly close to the evolution and well of the national minimum wage and that, for workers to maintain the same difference that existed in the minimum wage that existed in 2009, it would be necessary to have a salary increase, this year, of 196 euros”.