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DESCRIPTION:12/13 Solidarity Rally For Portuguese Port of Setúbal Dockworkers\nStand 
 With The Dockworkers And Against Temporary Work\n\nThursday December 13, 
 2018\n12:00 noon\nPortuguese Consulate-San Francisco\n3298 Washington St 
 near Presidio St.\nSan Francisco, California\n\nDockworkers from the 
 Portuguese \nPort of Setúbal are being forced into temporary workers and 
 further exploitation. They need support for dockers and worker around the 
 world.\nFor years, the casual workers of the Port of Setúbal have had 
 “regular” jobs. So “regular” that they are forced to pass a power 
 of attorney to administrative employees of the companies who sign a 
 contract of employment for them when needed.\n\nCarla Ribeiro is a 
 dockworker at the Port of Setúbal. ” I am a dockworker”, she says. 
 “I have a 5-year-old daughter. I have been working for 9 years with daily 
 contracts. I’ve worked while pregnant until 8 1/2 months. Sometimes I had 
 to call my husband after working from 8:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m. telling him 
 that I had to stay until 1:00 am – and later call him again to say that I 
 was going to work the night shift until 7:00 am. Now it’s enough! We are 
 involved in this war. We won’t step back”.\n\nCarla is part of a pool 
 of 309 casual workers at the Port of Setúbal. 146 of these have been 
 working regularly form some 20 years for the companies Operestiva and 
 Setulset. The remaining work for subcontractors.\n\nJoin The Solidarity 
 Rally For These Dockworkers\n\nSponsored by United Public Workers For 
 Action\nwww.upwa.info\n\nImage result for dockworkers struggle at the Port 
 of Setúbal, PortugalImage result for dockworkers struggle at the Port of 
 Setúbal, Portugal\n\nThe biggest strike of precarious workers: the 
 dockworkers struggle at the Port of Setúbal, 
 Portugal\nhttps://raquelcardeiravarela.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/the-dockworkers-struggle-at-the-port-of-setubalportugal-is-the-wild-west-when-it-comes-to-labour-relations/\n\nFor 
 years, the casual workers of the Port of Setúbal have had “regular” 
 jobs. So “regular” that they are forced to pass a power of attorney to 
 administrative employees of the companies who sign a contract of employment 
 for them when needed.\n\nRaquel Varela\n\nCarla Ribeiro is a dockworker at 
 the Port of Setúbal. ” I am a dockworker”, she says. “I have a 
 5-year-old daughter. I have been working for 9 years with daily contracts. 
 I’ve worked while pregnant until 8 1/2 months. Sometimes I had to call my 
 husband after working from 8:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m. telling him that I had 
 to stay until 1:00 am – and later call him again to say that I was going 
 to work the night shift until 7:00 am. Now it’s enough! We are involved 
 in this war. We won’t step back”.\n\nCarla is part of a pool of 309 
 casual workers at the Port of Setúbal. 146 of these have been working 
 regularly form some 20 years for the companies Operestiva and Setulset. The 
 remaining work for subcontractors.\n\nSetúbal began in Leixões[1]. And it 
 started in August. When this year the Madeira and Leixões dockworkers 
 decided to move from the old corporate unionism and its promiscuity with 
 the stevedore companies and started joining the SEAL – the former Lisbon 
 dockworkers union known for its pugnacity, which became a nationwide union 
 – as retaliation they were put on the shelf by companies, some sweeping 
 the floors. And they saw their wages reduced. In response, since August 13, 
 all regular and casual dockworkers in the country went on a strike refusing 
 to work overtime, causing heavy delays in cargo handling.\n\nThe bosses of 
 Setúbal didn’t appreciate this solidarity strike and decided to break it 
 by offering contracts (now, after 20 years!) to a few of them – just a 
 couple of days after they had tried to “fire” them. All but two refused 
 to sign these contracts and went into a total standstill on November 5, 
 under the motto “Either we all sign or nobody will.” Some VW/Autoeuropa 
 workers (the automotive company most affected by this struggle) publicly 
 supported them – as did the call-center’s, Lisbon Underground, SOS 
 Handling / Groundforce and several other unions affiliated with CGTP union 
 federation.\n\nFor years, the casual workers of Setúbal have had 
 “regular” jobs. So “regular” that they were forced to pass a power 
 of attorney to administrative employees of the companies who sign contracts 
 of employment for them when needed. When they fall sick, they cannot have 
 medical assistance or their absence due to sickness paid by the NHS 
 (because they are not officially hired by the companies). So they call the 
 company, the company signs a contract as if they were working, the 
 coordinator confirms, and they may have medical assistance…\n\nThis and 
 other pearls typical of the “wild west” labour relations in Portugal 
 have been repeatedly communicated to the Minister of the Sea and ACT[2]. 
 They were never answered. In the Parliamentary Committees for Labour and 
 Social Security and Agriculture and the Sea, these issues have been 
 dragging on, while BE and PCP[3] raise the issues, but one never knows 
 whether they are acting as part of the “Geringonça”[4] or as 
 opposition. This is all in vain – unless the law of the ports is changed 
 and a collective bargaining agreement for the dockworkers is negotiated, 
 the conflict will last. With serious impact for the dockworkers, but also 
 for thousands of companies in the country, who lose millions, while profits 
 go the few concessionaires of the Ports.\n\nAt last the country seemed to 
 get an interest in this issue. Not for Carla and her family, or for these 
 men with their lives depending on daily contracts, but for the VW / 
 Autoeuropa cars that pile up waiting to be exported. The anxiety of the 
 Minister of the Sea is not due to the destroyed lives of these dockworkers, 
 but to the calls of the Autoeuropa shareholders.\n\nI have a particular 
 scientific interest in this stoppage (in fact, it is not a formal strike, 
 because casual dockworkers are recruited on a daily basis and do not have 
 their right to work protected – but neither do they have an obligation to 
 work) because I have maintained in many books that it is now much easier 
 for workers to organize themselves than it was 30 years ago. This statement 
 is always surprising to some, since traditional unions insist on the myth 
 that if they do not fight, it is because unionized workers are few and 
 fragile. The paralysis of the Port of Setúbal confirms my thesis. The just 
 in time model forces companies to have reduced stocks. Relocation of 
 companies is a permanent threat, but at the same time today a small sector 
 can stop an entire production chain. Globalization means dumping, but also 
 dependence. The stoppage of the Setúbal dockworkers can stop the biggest 
 factory in Portugal and the dockworkers from Sweden or Santos in Brazil can 
 also stop and this will have immediate effects in Lisbon or 
 Barcelona.\n\nThe weakest link of globalization may be the workers. And 
 they have been. But it can also be the companies, whose profits are based 
 on low wages guaranteed by the fear of losing job. In this field it is 
 important to remember that strikes are tugs-of-war that demand 
 accountability to society. Thus, trade unionism must be de facto 
 democratic, independent of any government and internationalist – 
 otherwise it will always face its own limits and fail to represent the 
 interests of large sections of the population.\n\nPortugal’s 
 “competitive edge” since the 1980s has depended on increasing labour 
 intensification and low wages. According to researcher Eugénio Rosa, the 
 cost per hour of labour decreased in the first quarter of 2018 (-1.5%) when 
 compared to the cost per hour of the first quarter of 2017, the average 
 income of the Portuguese being lower than it was in 2008. Investment fell. 
 Productivity rests on the back of workers, manual and intellectual, 
 required to do more and more with less and less. Doctors, teachers, nurses, 
 dockworkers, call centre operators, airport workers, Underground workers, 
 civil servants, what they say the most is: “I’m tired”, “I’m 
 afraid.”\n\nCompanies pay the minimum wage or little more, but the taxes 
 of the qualified sectors pay for the social assistance to which the poor 
 today, even when they work, are forced to resort: social unemployment 
 subsidy, reduced electricity rate … Every day the poor have to prove 
 their poverty and accept reaching out to the state. Thus, we would have 47% 
 of poor people without social transfers and with them we have 18%. While 
 the welfare state is universal, transfers are focused – they help to 
 perpetuate poverty, even if in the short term they alleviate it.\n\nThe 
 other problem of Portugal, and of the world, is the pyramidal model of 
 companies that concentrates profits in a parent company where they have few 
 workers while concentrating workers in subsidiary companies where there are 
 no profits. This model has created orgies of profits and social inequality, 
 leaving SMEs asphyxiated and workers exhausted. In the case of the Ports, 
 we should have asked ourselves a long time ago: why are they not public, 
 being strategic, and we put an end to this Calvary of brutal work in 
 benefit of a few intermediaries?\n\nOn 17 November, the SEAL met in a 
 national assembly to respond to the conflict in the Port of Setúbal and 
 there was a unanimous vote for the possibility of affiliation of casual 
 workers of this Port, in order to contribute to the dignity of their 
 subsistence. Solidarity is not letters that the wind carries, but tangible 
 actions.\n\nSocieties have to produce well. It is important to work well. 
 But you have to ask yourself how, who, for whom and what is produced. A 
 dockworker, Duarte Vitorino, from the Azores islands, with a regular 
 contract, is in solidarity with Carla. He earns 850 euros, of which he 
 deducts 4% for the union. Working extra hours he reaches 1200 or 1300 euros 
 monthly. He told me in an interview: “I live with 500 euros less since we 
 are on strike to extra work, we make an effort, my wife is anxious, but I 
 don’t care, it’s for the benefit of all … Besides, now I can see my 
 son every day (he smiles). I can survive without extra hours for a year!” 
 In this struggle he and his own have developed a sense of cooperation, 
 justice, and courage. A feeling that dehumanized work, where a VW car seems 
 to be more important than them, cannot give him.\n\nRaquel Varela is a 
 Historian. She is the coordinator of the Study Group on Global Labour 
 History at the Lisbon New University (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), 
 honorary fellow IISH, Visiting professor in UFF Post Graduation.\n\n[1] 
 Important port in Northern Portugal.\n\n[2] Portugal’s equivalent of the 
 British HSE (Health and Safety Executive).\n\n[3] BE (Left Block) and PCP 
 (Portuguese Communist Party).\n\n[4] Literally “contraption” – the 
 nickname of the alliance that supports the minority Socialist Party 
 Government in Parliament.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/12/07/18819649.php
SUMMARY:Solidarity Rally For Portuguese Port of Setúbal Dockworkers
LOCATION:Portuguese Consulate-San Francisco\n3298 Washington St near Presidio 
 St.\nSan Francisco, California
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/12/07/18819649.php
DTSTART:20181213T200000Z
DTEND:20181213T210000Z
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