“Today we talked about working hours, their deregulation and their consequences in the lives of those who work. It is not worth wasting time demonstrating the implications, the injustices and the problems that result from the brutal and unregulated workload, each one of you, each one of the workers knows this harsh reality well. It is worth continuing the fight to reduce working hours to 35 hours a week, without loss of pay.”

Jerónimo de Sousa also wanted to talk about the “concrete problems” of Public Administration workers in Portugal, and the “non-valuation of careers”, and the “successive years of salary stagnation and loss of purchasing power”.

“Workers cannot be pawns in the hands of private operators, they are men and women who deserve respect and their appreciation is urgent”.

Jerónimo de Sousa criticised the PS and PSD parties for what they defend in the labour area and assured workers that they can always count on the PCP and CDU to make “advances” and “value work and workers”.

“We are just a few days away from the legislative elections, each of you, each of the workers, knows what they can count on. He knows that, with the PS, PSD and their successors, each of the problems identified and dealt with here today will have only one of two paths: either to maintain, or to aggravate the unacceptable existing reality”, he argued.