Preventive general strike: the art of protesting to avoid negotiation?

Mark your calendars: CGTP and UGT have announced a general strike against the "Work XXI" draft bill for next Thursday, December 11th, during the week of the national holiday on December 8th and about a month before the presidential elections. Opportunistic unionism.

Traditionally, strikes are also cited by unions as a last resort, because they imply a loss of pay for participating workers. In this sense, the decision to call a strike should not be taken lightly. This has been carefully and scrupulously considered and ensured by the proponents.

Indeed, this general strike emerges, as we well know, from a popular uprising against a so-called "labor package" consisting of a draft bill awaiting counter-proposals, namely from workers' representatives. Faced with the unprecedented provocation of a Government that promotes negotiation in the expectation of receiving counter-proposals before presenting a bill for discussion and debate in the Assembly of the Republic, where there is no absolute majority and ten political parties are represented, there is nothing left to do but a strike, preferably a general one.

It is, in fact, perfectly understandable: the mere possibility of negotiating without resorting to the atomic bomb (general strike) would be a capitulation of a trade union movement that has a dominant representation in Portugal. As we know, union membership rates are flourishing. Surely the reader knows dozens or hundreds of unionized workers. Indeed, the reader may only not be unionized because, perhaps, they are an economically dependent self-employed worker anxiously waiting in line for acceptance by a union near them.

Alternatively, the reader might say: representativeness is a false problem, because there are always altruistic heralds capable of reading and interpreting popular sentiment, who dispense with mechanisms of legitimacy, legitimation, or even adherence to reality, because the path leads towards utopia.

The reader might also say: the strike must cause harm to prevent civilizational regression. This makes sense, especially when the harm is mostly caused to other people, because they are left without transportation, medical appointments or exams, daycare and schools for their children and grandchildren. Let those who do not voluntarily join the struggle of the righteous suffer the consequences, even if they are not old enough to vote or even choose cartoons.

This punishment is more than justified. It is unacceptable that the Draft Bill proposes, for example, (i) extending parental leave to 180 days with greater sharing of responsibilities between father and mother, (ii) expanding the group of people with disabilities protected by the quota system, (iii) replacing a 180-day probationary period for first-time job seekers and long-term unemployed with a fixed-term employment contract with a minimum duration of 12 months, (iv) reducing the burden on workers who do not have children, either because they legitimately do not want to or unfortunately cannot due to personal, health or financial reasons, through an adjustment of flexible working hours, (v) relieving micro-enterprises of the burden of mandatory vocational training, (vi) more flexible regulation through collective bargaining – i.e., with the involvement of trade unions – of the teleworking regime, (vii) eliminating the rule requiring the worker to return compensation to the employer in case of judicial challenge to dismissal, and (viii) extending minimum services. to services providing care for children, the elderly, the sick, and people with disabilities.

The reader might say: the draft bill has other infamous measures. For example, it eliminates the prohibition of "outsourcing," because companies, after creating or internalizing a particular service or department, must maintain it until death or insolvency, regardless of whether or not they are more efficient and create better working conditions in other areas of activity. Workers' representatives are excellent managers, and we should learn from their experience.

On the other hand, it eliminates the possibility of an unlawful reinstatement of a worker, when any employer wishes to deceive an inexperienced judge or a group of less attentive judges, who will be responsible for deciding (i) whether the employer can prevent the worker's reinstatement and, if so, (ii) what the increased amount of compensation should be. As we know, on the one hand, anyone who is mistreated or unjustly treated longs to return to the place where they were unhappy; on the other hand, money does not bring happiness.

Furthermore, conflict and class struggle are the alpha and omega of trade union activity, without which it would be orphaned. Strictly speaking, it would be forced, for example, to look to other trade union experiences (from Central Europe, the Nordic countries, or even Asia) and find more and better reasons for its existence. Therefore, there is no justification for leaving the comfort zone.

There is another strong argument in favor of this general strike: after contract doctors (temporarily employed) considered a strike in the emergency rooms of the National Health Service (SNS) against a draft decree that could introduce changes, particularly in the value of services provided, the workers' representatives could not miss the opportunity to leverage this noble art of negotiation, making full use of the interests of those who cannot defend themselves: the recipients of essential services, that is, all of us.

All things considered: this general strike is fundamental to creating more transparent, fair, and effective systems for regulating labor relations, and will surely be a strong contribution to improving the living conditions of those who pay for the strike, even if they did not order or even request it.