They say labour laws are outdated and need to be "more flexible", thinking of young people. They say it's not worth fighting. They raise prices; they deregulate working hours; they don't even want to hear about increasing wages and pensions; they never stop profiting from the war and from your work. They are the economic groups. For you, who live out of your work, there is no shortage of reasons to say enough is enough, to join the General Strike on June 3. It is necessary to defeat this Labour Package as a whole and each of its measures.

1. The Labor Package can really be defeated

If it were up to the PSD/CDS government, the bosses, and the parties that support them – Chega and IL – this Package would already have been approved. It didn't happen because the workers' struggle prevented it. All the struggle that workers have undertaken, at the outset with the General Strike on December 11, proves that workers are strong enough to make this Labour Package fall once and for all. If you are in doubt whether your participation counts or not, remember: every worker on strike is a barrier against this Package.

2. The cost of living increases and the people can't take it anymore

Every time we go to the supermarket, buy a gas cylinder or fill up the car, the price seems increasingly impossible to pay. This is also what is at stake in the General Strike: wages and pensions do not keep up with price increases; the profits of economic groups show who is profiting from these increases; the government refuses to regulate prices and touch profits.

You have millions of reasons to join the strike:

1312 million reasons – Galp Energia's profits

1661 million – EDP's profits

1006 million reasons - Jerónimo Martins + SONAE

3. The youth only loses with the Labour Package

Is it in the interest of the youth to have even more precarious work, deregulated working hours, easier dismissals, and less power to demand wage increases?

The Labour Package does not solve any of the negative aspects that the labour law already imposes, and worsens each of them. The youth do not need perpetual precariousness and to be thrown into emigration in search of decent wages and affordable housing, and this is not the responsibility of other generations of workers, but of political choices that rob them of future prospects.

4. Increased Precariousness

Did you know that... The Government wants to expand the reasons for fixed-term contracts and allow them to last even longer, from 2 to 3 years? And wants to promote subcontracting/outsourcing to destroy jobs with permanent contracts?

More instability in your life: you work today without knowing if you will continue working tomorrow.

Result: more precariousness, more fear, fewer rights.

What the PCP advocates: a permanent job should correspond to a formal employment contract.

5. Temporary work: they want perpetual regression

Did you know that... Today, if a court deems a temporary work contract illegal, the worker becomes permanent at the company where they actually work?

The Government wants to change this: the permanent employment will be done at the temporary work agency and even there it will be conditional on the uncertainty of changes to facilitate dismissals.

In other words: continued precariousness and the impossibility of entering the companies where you actually work.

What the PCP advocates: presumption of the existence of an employment contract with the company where the service is provided and integration into its staff.

6. False green receipts (self-employed contracts) protected by the Government

Did you know that... Currently, when a worker submits 50% of their receipts to the same employer, an employment contract is presumed?

The Government wants to increase the limit to 80%!

This makes it more difficult to combat false green receipts and legalises the exploitation of thousands of workers.

What the PCP advocates: combating false green receipts and presuming an employment relationship whenever there is, for example, a schedule, hierarchy, or work tools that belong to the employer.

7. Return of the individual hour bank against workers

Did you know that... The individual hour bank, which had been eliminated from law, will once again be possible through simple agreement or "adherence" to the company's internal regulations?

In practice, the worker cannot refuse – they need the job and sign.

You know when you start, you don't know when you finish, you don't choose when or if you enjoy your rest. What they want is to impose unpaid work (you stop receiving overtime pay for up to 150 hours outside your daily schedule). Your life time, family time, rest, and leisure time become controlled by the boss.

What the PCP advocates: end of the individual hour bank, regulation of working hours, balance between work and leisure.

8. Group hour bank without consulting workers

Did you know that... Group hour banks no longer require a company referendum?

Previously, although always under pressure, it was left for workers to decide. Now it's the boss who imposes it.

Less democracy, more imposition, more working hours for the same pay.

What the PCP advocates: end of group hour banks, regulation of working hours, balance between work and leisure.

9. Attack on wages (also) via twelfths

Did you know that... The Government wants to allow employers to pay holiday and Christmas bonuses in twelve instalments again?

This masks low wages, reduces purchasing power and, over time, destroys those two months of pay – inflation swallows them up.

Wages don't increase: it's an accounting trick.

What the PCP advocates: the defence of bonuses paid in full in the corresponding months and wage increases without accounting manoeuvres.

10. Dismissals without just cause at the employer's will

Did you know that... The proposal allows that, even when a court declares there is no just cause, the employer can prevent the employee's reinstatement?

They just have to invent that it "affects the company's operation."

It opens the door to dismissals for revenge, persecution, or retaliation.

It's the "I want, I can, and I command" made into law.

What the PCP advocates: the possibility of being reinstated in the company in case of unlawful dismissal, at the worker's decision.

11. Fewer rights for families and children

Did you know that... The Government wants to reduce breastfeeding leave and limit flexible working hours, subordinating them to company needs?

It wants to force workers, mothers or fathers of children under 12, to work night shifts, holidays, and weekends, affecting their time with their children.

The rights of children and families are sidelined by employer interests.

Less time with children, more pressure on mothers and fathers.

What the PCP advocates: more time for family, more rights for children, a general increase in wages, a reduction in the working week to 35 hours, a 3-hour reduction in daily working hours until the age of 2, and 7 months of 100% pay during maternity leave.

12. Collective bargaining is the target

Did you know that... Many of our rights are set down in collective bargaining?

The proposal facilitates the expiry of collective agreements and allows the employer to choose the contract that applies to workers?

This destroys decades of achievements and gives employers the power to impose the worst conditions negotiated in other contracts.

It is an attempt to eliminate collective bargaining and the rights it enshrines.

13. Limited trade union freedom

Did you know that... The proposal prevents trade unions from meeting with workers in companies without unionised workers or known unionised workers, subjects union information on notice boards to the employer's authorisation, and expands minimum services?

It hinders trade union action and directly attacks the right to strike.

Less organisation – more exploitation.

What the PCP advocates: the valorisation of union rights, as a way to guarantee workers' rights and living conditions.

14. Labour Package, wage cut

The set of measures presented as modernisation and flexibility (as always) has the fundamental objective of reducing the value of labour pay, lowering wages, and obtaining work without paying. A great windfall for the big bosses, at the cost of your life, your family, your rest.

This is a package tailor-made for the big moneyed lords, the big bosses, those who profit from the country's misery, from low wages, and from the destruction of your rights. Every right of yours is just a cost to them. The employers ordered it, the government fulfilled it. But we will not give in.

The government's labour package brings together almost all the demands of the employers, from various sectors, in a single document. It is a labour package tailored to the big bosses, the only ones who truly benefit from the degradation of our lives and our wages.

15. The law is outdated but is quite recent

They say that labour legislation is "from the 70s," but in reality, it's a code initiated in 2003 (PSD/CDS), continued in 2009 by the PS, and has since undergone 20 amendments. Successive changes to the labour code, including those of the PS government in 2009, all imposed against workers and for the benefit of large employers. Among these changes are those imposed by the Troika during the period of the pact of aggression and submission, signed by PS, PSD, and CDS, with the support of those who are now in Chega and IL. The law is indeed "antiquated," but not because it's old, but because of the outdated and obsolete conception of its content: it means regressing to forms of exploitation from 70 and 100 years ago.

★★★

The Labour Package is a project of exploitation and injustice that must be defeated.

For better wages, against the cost of living, for better public services, for the right to healthcare and housing, for Peace! Everyone to the general strike! One more push and the package will fall!