The UGT will vote on a proposal to amend the Statutes which provides that the President and the Secretary-General may exercise their duties for three consecutive terms instead of two.
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10/10/2026
by
Lusa
A UGT will today vote on a proposal to amend the Statutes which provides that the President and Secretary-General of the Trade Union Centre may exercise their duties for three consecutive terms, rather than the current two.
This proposal is one of the various amendments contained in the proposal to amend the statutes of the General Workers Union (UGT), which is being discussed and is being voted on at the end of the afternoon.
Currently, the UGT statutes provide that “the President, the Secretary-General and the Deputy General Secretaries may not be elected more than twice consecutively and the Executive Secretaries more than three consecutive times, including in this case the term of office(s) as Deputy Secretary-General”.
Nevertheless, it provides that they may exercise one more term of office if they have a two-thirds majority of the Congress, in the case of the Secretary-General, and the national secretariat, in the case of the others.
In the proposed amendment, the UGT argues that the President, the Secretary-General, the Vice-Presidents, the Deputy Secretaries-General and the members of the Executive Secretariat “cannot exercise their office for more than three full and consecutive terms”.
The document also underlines that this rule “does not prevent a new application for the same post”, in the event of the termination of at least one full term of office, and determines as a consecutive term “the uninterrupted exercise of the same post, even if it results from the replacement or filling of a vacancy for more than half the duration” of that term.
If it is made possible, the proposal will enter into force immediately after its approval by Congress, but establishes a transitional provision: “exceptionally, the holders of positions [...] who, at the time of the entry into force of these Statutes, have already exercised three or more consecutive mandates may apply for the immediately subsequent term.”
The 15th Congress of the UGT started today in Figueira da Foz, district of Coimbra, almost four months after the ‘chumbo’ of labor law, at a meeting that will be marked by the choice of the successor of Lucinda Damaso in the presidency of the trade union central.