The workers of APTIV, in Braga, carried out 24-hour strikes, on the 9th, 10th, 11th and 13th of March, with one adhesion, according to the Union of Workers of Transforming Industries, Energy and Environmental Activities (SITE- North), “greater than 90%”. The union, which is calling for salary increases of 100 euros, threatens that, “if management persists, [os funcionários] will go on strike again on March 24, 26 and 27”.
In a statement, SITE-Norte stresses the “requirement of dignified salary increases, of at least 100 euros, in order to face the loss of purchasing power, by adding a 5th seniority period and applying these to all workers , which is currently not happening, due to the reduction of working hours without loss of pay, by 30 minutes immediately, in order to reach 35 hours a week in the short term, the end of the sixth night of work for the night, among other demands”.
“After the four strikes in February, the workers stopped the company’s production between the 9th and 13th of this month, with an average adherence between the various shifts of around 90%”, adds the statement.
The union states that, “in plenary sessions, the continuation of the fight was discussed, in the face of the intransigence of the administration, of a company that occupies the 6th place in the table of the largest exporters of 2022, according to data made public, with a turnover level of millions of euros, with a production for this year, above average”.
“The arm of iron comes with the intransigent proposal of the administration, to apply wage increases of 5.4%, a value that is far below the damage that workers have had, compare only with the value of inflation in the month of February 2023, of 8.6% according to the INE, which, along with speculation in the prices of energy, housing and basic food goods, puts workers at an enormous immediate loss. It should also be noted that it is not surprising that the management of this multinational, with fabulous profits, is limited to the minimum values decreed by the government, in order to have the blessed tax benefits”, says Site-Norte.
“For all these reasons, the workers do not accept the company’s proposal, as they consider it obscene that a multinational with so many millions of profits for shareholders, benefits from public money when it leaves its workers to live with unworthy wages”, can be read. still in the statement.
SITE-Norte concludes that APTIV workers will participate in the National Demonstration on March 18th, called by the CGTP-IN, and will return to the strike on the next 24th, 26th and 27th, “if until then, the administration insists on staying of social conflict”.
