Portugal
The federation of public service unions is determined to continue its campaign to defend workers' pay and rights in public administration and to resist further moves towards privatisation. The federation has organised a forum on 22 February to debate how to take the campaign forward and is supporting a national demonstration with private sector trade unions on 2 March called by the CGTP trade union federation.
Read more at > FNSFP (PT)
Public administration union STAL is following three days' of action in April with a national demonstration planned for 19 May in Lisbon. The 10, 11 and 12 of April saw the union organise vigils outside the head offices of the minister for local administration, the finance minister and then on 12 April outside the prime minister's office. The campaign continues to focus on opposition to government cuts in public spending and defence of the pay and conditions of public service workers. The union will also be launching a national publicity campaign to alert people to the threat to public services
Following the success of the mobilisations on 1 May, the eight trade union federations are sticking together to organise another day of action on 26 May. This time the emphasis will be on widespread local actions. This will be followed by another national mobilisation on 13 June. The unions are also looking to build on their joint statement from January to set out a series of key demands that they want the government to respond to. Read more at > CGT (FR)
The European Commission has launched the second phase of consultation over the Working Time Directive with responses due from social partners by 28 February. The Commission has put the focus on issues around on-call time, minimum rest periods, tackling excessive working hours, better reconciliation of work and family life and clarifying areas whether the law appears unclear. However, EPSU underlines the need to challenge the individual opt-out which it believes is behind the fact that more than one in 10 employees in the EU still work more than 48 hours a week. [Read more at > DG Employment
