Half a hundred workers protest before the Tourism Summit

Nthe concentration promoted by the Federation of Trade Unions of Agriculture, Food, Beverages, Hospitality and Tourism of Portugal (FESAHT), saw tracks that had inscribed phrases such as “Millionaire profites, wages of misery!” and appealed to collective negotiation.

Fernando Pinto, union delegate and worker of the Inatel Foundation, told Lusa that at the beginning of his career an Inatel worker receives 930 euros, and that at the top of his career, after 25 years, the salary only amounts to 1,172 euros.

In statements to Lusa, he also said that today the “bosses” will be distributing prizes at the Summit and that the workers were never invited to participate.

“ While the bosses today were distributing awards among them, who was the best director, the best human resource, the best hotel, the best private entity, all these national and international awards that were won over the years were at the expense of professionalism and the responsibility of the workers ", said.

“ Workers work and employers live with the prizes [...] we were somewhat outraged because at no time at the summit, already in the eighth, the workers were called [to participate]”, he added.

Present in the protest, CGTP’s Secretary-General Tiago Oliveira said that “the government has been permanent in saying that the country is better, that the workers are better.”.

“ When what is evidence of this sector and the reality of this sector is that it is a sector marked by low wages, a sector marked by precariousness, a sector marked by the deregulation of working hours”, he added.

Tiago Oliveira also sees the concentration of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) in tourism as a problem, considering that hotel and restaurant are sectors where there is greater labor exploitation.

“It’s a real problem for our country, it’s that we have an economy based on certain sectors, namely tourism, restoration, and then we find that it’s exactly the sectors where exploitation is larger.”.

“ So, this is what we want for the country, we want a country based on low value products, this is when we say we want to increase the productivity of the country and look at what the strategic sectors are and we see the strategic and fundamental sectors for the country, to be completely sold to shameless, completely devalued ", exclaimed the Secretary-General of the trade union center.

The trade unionist also appealed to those who govern the country to make future decisions that are different from the current one.

“ What we say is that we have to look at the country in order to seek that the country is a sovereign country in its decision [...] political decision, economic decision, with a different future perspective than that put to us.