PCP launched yesterday a National Initiative of contact with workers, part of the campaign «Valuing work and workers. No to exploration!», with dozens of initiatives in all regions of the continent and autonomous regions, which will continue today and over the next few weeks.

We are where we have always been. With the workers and the people, listening to their problems, denouncing the abuses of their rights, making proposals to respond to their demands and desires.

Some thought they could tie us up and shut us up, tried to push us behind computer screens or mobile phones, to limit our intervention.

They were wrong! Where the workers ensured production, PCP was there always demanding better working conditions. When hundreds of thousands saw their wages reduced with lay-offs, PCP was there in protest. When unemployment knocked on the door of so many men and women, PCP rose up and said, no!

We could expect nothing else from this Portuguese Communist Party. Determination. Confidence. Struggle.

"In the fight against the virus, not one right less." This is the motto that today brings thousands of comrades to companies and workplaces, underlining what we have said so many times.

The virus can kill and one must prevent its spread and defend all lives. But we must not forget those whose lives were destroyed because they lost their jobs, their wages, lost individual and collective rights.

That is why this action, first and foremost, is aimed at denouncing the ongoing attempt to make industrial relations an authentic law of the jungle. An operation that is not new, but that, during the epidemic outbreak of Covid-19, found the ideal pretext for certain capitalist sectors to go as far as possible and have their moves remain in the future.

Unilateral change of schedules, reduction of wages and other remuneration, denial of maternity and paternity rights are just some of the examples that mark the lives of thousands of workers.

This action is also aimed at denouncing the scandal of the transfer of thousands of euros to companies with profits in the millions and which, at the first opportunity, took the opportunity to transfer a large part of their costs onto workers and Social Security. Companies, many of them multinationals, which benefit from millions of euros in public support for projects, which fill their mouths with talk of social responsibility, but which have now, at the first opportunity, forgotten all about it.

Take the case of an economic group that placed 500 workers on lay-off, but that, after a few days, announced the purchase of 30% of a large media company. There is money, as we can plainly see!

Particularly significant is the fact that more than 50% of large companies have resorted to lay-off, while only 8% of small companies have used this instrument.

This action is also intended to give a voice to all those who have lost their jobs, over a hundred thousand, since the beginning of March. A hundred thousand jobs. A hundred thousand lives. A hundred thousand houses to pay. One hundred thousand monthly bills. So many of them with children.

Job insecurity aided the process. Contracts nearing their term, workers in experimental period (which was extended towards the end of the previous legislature to 180 days), "false" independent workers, workers in temporary work agencies: all were easily disposable parts in this context. They may say that part of these layoffs are in accordance with the law. That might be so. But if the law allows this inhumanity to occur with workers when they need it most, then it becomes clear that the law must be changed.

Yes. The virus is not the culprit, job insecurity was already the hallmark of Labor Relations in Portugal. This is the fault of those who use precariousness in their companies as a rule, and of legislators that allow this scandal.

PCP's initiative will show workers that, in this time, there was one Party, the Portuguese Communist Party, which, interpreting the sentiments, needs and aspirations of the workers and the people, sought by all means to demand the resolution of their problems, making proposals in Parliament to this end.

Among the proposals we presented over the past weeks, I would like to highlight three of them.

Firstly, the prohibition of dismissals in this period, involving the restitution of work to all those fired in the meantime.

This is a measure of basic justice. How can it be acceptable for workers to be treated as mere pieces of machinery which capital discards at the first opportunity?

You will ask, but what can be done when companies are forced to suspend their activity? PCP proposed that workers' wages be guaranteed through a fund, part of the State Budget, for companies in need of this aid.

They will always answer that we need to understand there is no money, to which we need only reply with two words. Novo Banco [New Bank]. While some amuse themselves discussing whether there should be an audit of Novo Banco, billions of euros flow to the banks, as has happened often in recent years, without the banks becoming the property of the Portuguese people.

This proposal must be combined with the just claim to guarantee 100% remuneration to all workers. This is not just a fair measure for those who are completely available to work 100%, but also necessary to avoid deepening traces of a recession that is approaching and that, if not sustained, will once again fall upon the workers and the people.

I also want to highlight the proposal to regulate the health, hardship and risk allowances for workers in the public and private sectors, and the demand for an extraordinary allowance for all workers who have remained at work in particularly exposed jobs.

Health workers, garbage collectors, commercial workers, security forces, so many professions that have received sincere and heartfelt popular thanks and kind words from institutions and employers, but which now, when the time has come to actually value them, are whistling to the side.

We also highlight the proposal, presented recently in Parliament, to create extraordinary social protection support for workers without access to other instruments and mechanisms of social protection, in particular workers with atypical forms of work, such as hourly and daily work.

We are talking about thousands of workers whose incomes were already very low and often intermittent, who were left without any source of income, to whom we must assist.

Associated with a national emergency to raise wages in general and value careers and professions, the rejection of the grave norms in the labour legislation, in particular the expiration of collective bargaining, and the restitution of the principle of more favourable treatment, these new proposals are necessary as immediate measures to value work and workers, within the framework of a patriotic and left-wing policy that breaks with years of a policy of exploitation and impoverishment, and answers the country's problems.

To combat the impacts of the epidemic outbreak and guarantee the country's future, Portugal needs, in fact, an alternative, patriotic and left-wing policy that ensures employment, defends wages and the rights of workers and the people, strengthens Public Services, promotes national production and ensures the investment necessary for a sovereign path of development.

A struggle, an alternative and a path that enforces: the liberation of the Country from submission to the Euro, in conjunction with the renegotiation of the public debt; the valuing of work and workers; the protection and promotion of national production and productive sectors; the public control of the banking system and recovery of the public sector in the basic and strategic sectors of the economy; a public administration and public services in the service of the people and the Country; a policy of fiscal justice and a fight against the privileges of big business; the defence of the democratic system and the implementation of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic; the further development of the rights, freedoms and guarantees; the fight against corruption and the implementation of an independent judiciary, accessible to all.

The evolution of the situation reveals that big capital is using the current situation to impose an even greater concentration and centralization of its wealth, at the expense of even more violent exploitation and further attacks on rights, freedoms, democracy and sovereignty.

Each one of you, in your testimonies, can bring a living expression to these concerns of ours.

As part of the attacks on workers' rights and the ongoing ideological offensive to ensure that these limitations become acceptable, in the near future – alleging, on the one hand, the fight against the disease and, on the other, the salvation of the economy –, we witnessed the hatred towards the realization of the May Day initiative of struggle.

They summoned all the means to criticize it, placed all the usual scribes with sharpened knives against the organizers, they silenced all the voices and all the evidence that proved the initiative was not only indispensable, as a cry of attention and demand given the trampling of rights, but also that it was possible to realize it while complying with all the safety rules recommended by the competent authorities.

The courageous decision by CGTP-IN, the great Trade Union Center of Portuguese workers, to be where it has always been, at the heart of the struggle for the rights of those who work, able to adapt and have actions unlike any in previous memorable days, says volumes about this organization's connection to all those it represents.

In this time when capitalism's exploitative, predatory, and aggressive nature and deeply inhuman character are laid bare, each worker who lost a job; those who had their wage cut by 30%, or more; those being forced to do their job without proper conditions; those in teleworking, but who have to take care of their children, replacing the closed schools; those who travel in packed mass transportation; those who saw their vacation time consumed by the days they awaited to learn about the situation; all those who don't yet know their situation, except that they are not working or earning money, all of them confirmed they can count on us.

To denounce, to propose, to struggle.

Let us now turn to the debate, which will enrich our knowledge and experience of these difficult times.