Portugal is facing severe disruption to transport, flights, hospitals, schools and other public services on Thursday, as the two main union federations stage a general strike over unprecedented labour reforms.The last time the CGTP and the generally less militant UGT joined forces was during the eurozone debt crisis in 2013, when a “troika” of international institutions demanded cuts in salaries and pensions as part of Portugal’s bailout.Twelve years later, Portugal’s economy has become the fastest growing in the eurozone in recent months, but Prime Minister Luís Montenegro says it is still necessary to tackle “rigidities” in the labour market “so companies can be more profitable and workers have better salaries” as a result.”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 strike.However, Montenegro appears to have been taken aback by the strength of feeling against his minority right-of-centre government’s plans: one of his Social Democrat MPs is on the UGT executive and even he voted for a strike.The prime minister tweaked some proposals after calling the federation in for talks late last month, but it was clearly not enough.Among the most controversial of the more than 100 proposals are:letting employers roll over temporary contracts for years on endlifting a ban on sacking workers then immediately rehiring them indirectly via outsourcingremoving a requirement to reinstate employees who were unfairly dismissed.It is Portuguese in their 20s who are likely to be most affected by the changes – and opinion is rather mixed.Diogo Brito, who works as an air steward but has friends who do casual work in tourism, supports the right to strike but backs the package: “It has to be done. We have to catch up with richer countries and with these measures I think we can evolve more.”But self-employed photographer Eduardo Ferreira says he knows many people who already cannot find secure jobs an …
