BE coordinator Mariana Mortágua said today that the PS “has to decide” whether to side with a right-wing government or oppose Luís Montenegro’s executive, pointing to “divergent signals” from various socialist leaders.
“With regard to the relationship between the PS and the PSD, it will have to be the PS that makes a choice: the PS will have to choose which side it is on,” said Mariana Mortágua, speaking to journalists in Lisbon on the sidelines of a protest by EDP workers.
The BE leader was asked about the meeting that the Blocists have already requested with the PS, which has yet to be scheduled, and about the letter sent by the Socialist secretary-general to the Social Democrat prime minister, Luís Montenegro, offering to negotiate an agreement that would resolve the situation of certain professional groups in the public administration within 60 days.
For Mariana Mortágua, the PS has to decide “whether it is on the side of a right-wing government that chooses as Secretary of State for Labor [Adriano Rafael Moreira] the person responsible for breaking off collective bargaining for wage increases below the earnings agreement at EDP, or whether it is on the side of the opposition, the opposition to a right-wing government that brings nothing but instability, low wages, lack of solutions for the country.”
In the opinion of the Bloc coordinator, “there have been divergent signals from the PS, divergent signals from various PS leaders” and, therefore, “it is important for the country that the PS decides which side it wants to be on”
Mortágua also warned that EDP is experiencing a “labor crisis”, which has “the mark of one person”, the new Secretary of State for Labor in the Social Democrat government, Adriano Rafael Moreira.
“The new Secretary of State was the face EDP chose to confront these workers, to stop collective bargaining, to impose wage increases below inflation. A government that pays lip service to the need to increase salaries has chosen as Secretary of State the person responsible for a labor crisis at EDP and for imposing low salaries and working conditions that we don’t really want for anyone,” he criticized.
