The head of Portugal’s communist party, Jerónimo de Sousa, said that he is astonished by the mixed messages coming from the government over the TAP sale, specifically about workers’ rights.
Indeed the plot has been temporarily lost as the PM and his Minister for the Economy have failed to coordinate a key part of the TAP privatisation deal that any new buyer will have to abide by.
The economy minister, Pires de Lima said that he had agreed with the bosses of nine of the unions who represent workers at TAP that there would be no staff redundancies under a new owner for at least 30 months. This covered all eleven unions even though he had been in talks with only nine union representatives.
The next day, the prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho said that this deal in fact covered only staff in these nine unions and not all staff from all unions, despite Pires de Lima’s assertion to the contrary.
"We were appalled by the minister saying one thing and the Prime Minister the next day saying something different, clearly contradicting the Economy Minister," said Jerónimo de Sousa today, delighting in the confusion but concerned that redundancies would be the order of the day whether the airline is sold or remains under state control.
According to the leader of the PCP, it was clear that "privatisation means dismissals,” and “that in essence the Government has in mind through privatisation to make redundancies."
Last Thursday, the Council of Ministers approved the sale terms and conditions under which the new owner of TAP would be prevented from making redundancies while the State was a still a shareholder, or for the first two and a half years after the sale. This clearly covered only those staff at nine of the eleven TAP unions.
However Pires de Lima differed, "The 30 months of job security cover all TAP employees," said the minister after signing the agreement between the Government, TAP and the nine unions which were threatening to strike between Christmas and New Year.
According to Jerónimo de Sousa, the confusion over redundancies means that these are indeed planned, but only from the unions that were not covered by the new agreement.
Whatever the outcome this sort of confusion shows a lack of grip on a key and contentious issue where clarity and leadership are needed.
