General strike planned in Portugal

Admin

December 11, 2025
3 min read

Portugal will see its first general strike in over a decade, likely to cause disruption to public services across the country. The two main union federations will stage the strike over labour reforms. The last time the CGTP and UGT united was during the 2013 eurozone debt crisis in 2013 when international instructions demanded salaries and pensions be cut as part of the country’s bailout.

Now, the Portuguese economy has become the eurozone’s fastest growing over recent months. But Prime Minister Luís Montonegro says cuts are still necessary to tackle “rigidities” within the labour market to allow companies to “be more profitable” and workers to “have better salaries.” “I will not give up on having a country with the ambition to be at the forefront, to be at the vanguard of Europe,” he said on the eve of the general strike.

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He “appears to have been taken aback by the strength of feeling” says the BBC, against his government’s plans. Some proposals have been tweaked after the federation was called in for talks last month.

But some of his over 100 proposals have proved controversial. These include allowing employers to roll over temporary contracts for years on end, removing a ban on sacking then immediately rehiring workers indirectly via outsourcing, and removing a requirement to reinstate those who were unfairly fired. People in their 20s are most likely to be affected by these measures.

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