“There will be no more ‘lay-off’/ suspension of employment contract, so all our employees will be in ‘lay-off’/ reduction of working hours. It means that all workers will be working with a reduction of applied working hours”, explains the internal communications sent by Grupo TAP’s Human Resources department.

The internal communication then lists “three important notes” about this new regime starting in August.

On the one hand, “no worker will receive remuneration equal to or less than the one that was received during the previous ‘lay-off’ period”, underlining that “the value of workers’ lay-off” corresponds to the received remuneration above their percentage of working hours.”

For land personnel, it was defined that those who have a 70 percent reduction in hours “will receive a remuneration, under the terms of this new legislation, corresponding to 77 percent of their remuneration.”

Those with a 50 percent reduction in hours will receive 83 percent of the remuneration and workers covered with a 20 percent reduction in working hours “will be entitled to a remuneration corresponding to 93 percent” of the salary.

Contacted by Lusa, the group’s official source said that “TAP does not comment on internal company communications about ongoing processes whose decisions are not yet final and can be changed. Workers and their representative structures will always be the first to be informed in the company, rightly in relation to these issues.”