The PCP has launched a campaign to valorise work and workers - «No to exploitation» - with dozens of initiatives in all regions of the country, as we are doing here in Portel.

We are where we have always been, with the workers and the people, listening to their problems, denouncing violations of their rights, making proposals to respond to their claims and aspirations.

There were some who thought they could and tried to silence us or reduce our activity.

They were wrong. Not because we underestimate the effect of Covid-19 or the health protection measures that the situation demands from everyone, but because we had to be there in companies and workplaces.

There, where hundreds of thousands of workers saw their wages cut by a third, with the application of the lay-off scheme. There, where unemployment knocked on the doors of many men and women, with some losing all their income.

We are aware that the virus can kill. Hence the need for health protection and to defend all lives. But we cannot forget those who have had their lives destroyed because they lost their jobs, their wages, lost individual and collective rights and some lost everything.

And that is why this action aims, in the first place, to break the silence and denounce the ongoing operation to turn industrial relations into a real law of the jungle, using the pretext, in the shadow of the virus, to take back the rights and to transfer to companies, to be more accurate for large companies, thousands of euros to add to the millionaire profits of many, transferring to Social Security and workers a great part of their costs.

It is significant that more than 50% of the large companies resorted to the lay-off scheme, while only 8% of small companies used this mechanism.

Did the population of Alentejo resist the epidemic well? Yes, it is true.

But the workers, small and medium-sized producers, micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs face very serious problems.

In the district of Évora the problems have worsened and answers are needed. Unemployment and poverty are growing. There are already 1356 companies that requested the lay-off, 1.2% of the national total, and it is estimated that there were 4431 micro companies that closed temporarily and 460 may have closed permanently, with strong impacts for workers with cuts in their wages and income and with consequences for the local and regional economy.

With the epidemic outbreak, we are witnessing abusive practices of exploitation of workers with precarious ties, imposition of vacations, in some cases already jeopardising 2021 vacation days, as was the case at Tyco, refusal to pay the vacation allowance, imposition of a bank of hours, 7 and 14-day working days without breaks, cases of extension of working hours, or barring vacations this year in the social services sector, wage cuts, among others.

In many large companies and economic groups the only justification they have is not jeopardising their profits, as is the case of Tyco, AIS, Gestamp, Embraer or Amorim Isolamentos, large hotel groups, among others.

There are serious concerns about possible impacts in the aeronautical sector in the district due to the situation of commercial and civil aviation. We have to fight the consequences in companies that have received millions of euros for their setup in this region, as is the case with Mecachrome.

The April data on unemployment shows that there was an increase of 21.4% (840 more), reaching 4942 workers, with 20% of unemployment not accounted for.

All of this at a time when some said that we were all in the same boat, with clamouring calls for fear and resignation, to give up the fight for jobs, for wages, for rights, for the right to a decent life.

And life proves us right when we say that when you fight you don't always win, but when you don't fight you always lose.

Dear friends and comrades, the PCP did not just stop at the denunciation.

It came forward with proposals. From the outset, the prohibition of dismissals in this difficult phase, the guarantee of a 100% wage restoration to all workers who under the lay-off scheme are available for work.

The proposal (which the government was willing to consider) for a support of 438 euros for those who were left with nothing. Measures to support self-employed workers who lost their income, measures to increase family allowance. Effective support for micro, small and medium entrepreneurs and small producers.

Measures that could and can be implemented, taking into account the government's willingness to consider them. After all, looking at the Supplementary Budget, they are not there.

But what is there focuses on measures that will only favour large companies, leaving aside workers and micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, who are on the verge of bankruptcy.

We are told: There is no money left for that.

No? So what about Novo Banco? And then all those billions of euros, some announced as non-refundable from the European Union? If they come, where and to whom do they go?

Another proposal of the PCP is the financial reinforcement of the National Health Service, of professionals, means and equipment, an issue that dismays the population of the district particularly with the non-reopening of the extensions of the Healthcare Centres.

The valorisation of work and workers is a strategic feature for the economic development of the region. It was the workers who were at the forefront of combating the epidemic.

Also strategic is the increase in regional production, using Alqueva as a lever.

Alqueva is not necessarily just a dam. It is a strategic water reserve that enhances the added value of irrigation, tourism, and electricity production.

The absence of a project and a course for Alqueva has consequences.

Among the 13 measures proposed by the PCP, we highlight the creation of a land bank for small farmers, workers and farmers with small farms of difficult viability, the release of water to the dams in Monte da Rocha and Lucefit, to reinforce the irrigation perimeter and, at least in the case of the first, to reinforce the human supply capacity, and to monitor the transformation of rain fed farms to irrigation.

The government has to listen to local government bodies, environmental associations, producers, farmers, citizens' movements and other entities.

Creating jobs, creating wealth, producing here what we are forced to buy abroad, fixing the population, this is the most solid and secure path of a patriotic and left-wing policy that Portugal needs, inseparable from the valorisation of work and workers.

You can count on the PCP.