CGTP claims price control and accuses Government of not knowing difficulties

O secretary-General of CGTP, Tiago Oliveira, today defended price control and accused the Government of not feeling the difficulties of those working, demanding an increase in wages during a demonstration of the trade union centre in Lisbon.

“ Let prices be based on interest rates. We cannot have a policy that continues to condition the lives of all of us, of those who have the least,” he said, in statements to journalists at the start of the demonstration of the trade union plant in Lisbon, which started at Cais de Sodré and takes place in Rossio this afternoon.

Tiago Oliveira considered that there is a “lack of response” of the Democratic Alliance executive (PSD/CDS-PP), claiming that “prices are limited”.

“ Those who say that there is never money for anything, have to go explain to the workers, to the population if, under these circumstances that so much affect us, it is normal that in this same period the big economic groups are having the greatest profits ever,” he said, saying that this circumstance “shows well the government’s policy” and “to whom he bows”.

Tiago Oliveira stressed the difficulty in accessing workers to goods of need and recalled the increase in fuel prices.

For the Secretary-General of the Trade Union Centre, “this government does not change [the circumstances] for a reason: because it does not feel the difficulty of life who works. Don’t feel it.”.

He then pointed out concrete difficulties, referring to the cost of housing, prices at supply stations and goods in supermarkets.

“ Do you think whoever's in charge of the country, who's running the country right now, knows what it's like to live on a $1,000 salary? Do you know what it means in a 1,000 euro salary [and] to have an income to pay for 800 or 900 euros? A litre price of fuel at EUR 2.30, the price of meat, the price of milk, the way it is? They don’t know, they don’t feel,” he asked.

“ What is happening is because of lack of response and political will. And here we are, as we have been in the labour package, fighting,” he said, in a reference to the fight against the government's bill to amend labour legislation, which was passed in parliament this year.

The central claims the increase of the national minimum wage to 1,110 euros, a claim remembered on stage by an element of CGTP after the parade arrives at Rossio, shortly after 4:00 p.m.

The demonstration concentrates tens of thousands of protesters, with posters in defense of improving the National Health Service (SNS), better education, better salaries in the public and private sectors, better pensions, bet on educational policy and measures that promote housing.

Many of the protesters raise posters on the increase in cost of living and the price of rents in Portuguese cities.

To the place where the demonstration ends is scheduled, for 17:00, a camp in defense of housing policies, with the name “Can’t you give more? Then set up your tent.

The CGTP manifestation has the motto “More salary, better pensions and public services .