MADRID, June 27. /ITAR-TASS reporter Alexander Chernosvitov /. In Portugal, at the call of the country's largest trade union confederations - the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers - Intersindical Nacional / CGTP-IN/ and the UGT / GSTP / takes course the fourth in the last two years general strike against the Government's conservative Social Democratic Party /PSD/ policies to reduce public social spending and raising taxes.
Public transport in Lisbon and Porto has been virtually brought to standstill, leading to huge traffic jams at the entrance to the cities, the industry stopped an up to 85 percent of medical staff didn’t come to work. According to the unions, the strike is attended by about 80 percent of employees.
According to CGTP general secretary Armenio Carlos, “the general strike is the response of workers to the government's reluctance to change its economic policies pursued under the dictation of the trio of international creditors.” ”People reject this policy, so today hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets to demand the resignation of the government,” said the union leader.
Another point of view represents the Portuguese government, whose head Pedro Pasos Coelho, speaking on Wednesday at the Portuguese Parliament, said he respects the right of workers to strike, but “today in order to recover from the economic crisis we should not go on strike but work harder.”