In April, the AD government marked two years in office. Without a doubt, a date to celebrate with champagne for bosses and landlords, for whom AD has governed shamelessly and without any consistent opposition from the institutional left. For us workers, these have been two years of brutal attacks that have left us poorer and with fewer rights. In the general strike we have the tool capable of bringing down this government of the bosses and winning rights. The historic general strike of December 11 showed that we have the strength to do so — all we lack is leadership up to the task. The general strike of June 3 presents a new opportunity to stop the labour package, but also to advance in the democratic construction of a combative and escalating plan of struggle capable of defeating the government.
Two years of AD government: alliance with the fascists to attack the workers
Two years ago, we asked ourselves whether the minority AD government would govern by relying more on the PS, on Chega, or by negotiating with both. The answer did not take long. Within a few days, the AD forgot all about the “red lines” discussion and allied itself without hesitation with the fascist party Chega to attack immigrant workers, showing itself to faithfully represent the most reactionary wing of the bourgeoisie in Portugal.
In record time, they jointly announced and approved a package of measures to restrict legal immigration, which included the abolition of the manifestação de interesse procedure. They created concentration camps for immigrants; the UNEF, the immigrants’ police, which like the ICE in the USA carries out raids to terrorise immigrants; and the AIMA, through which they instituted a truly Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare to keep immigrants undocumented.
Their biggest joint attack at the time, the amendment to the Nationality Law, was recently promulgated by the new President of the Republic, António José Seguro. It increases from 5 to 7 years the period of residence required to acquire nationality in the case of immigrants from the PALOP countries or the EU, and to 10 years in the case of immigrants from other countries. As we explain in greater detail in the article on pages 8 and 9, these and other measures passed jointly with Chega, such as the Foreigners Law and the Return Law, aim to keep immigrant workers either illegal or as second-class citizens, so that they can be more easily exploited by bosses.
With the results of the legislative elections a year ago — victory for the right and the far right and a historic defeat for the left — the government felt sufficiently confident to extend the attacks to the entire working class. A few months later, last summer, they presented the labour package written by the bosses to respond to their need to increase profits based on greater exploitation of labour power: more precariousness, longer working days and weaker trade union organisation. The very right to strike is called into question, as it is undermined by the requirement for a fixed percentage of minimum services.
This government has attacked us in every sphere of our lives, and we are undoubtedly worse off now than we were two years ago. In housing, it implemented a series of tax giveaways for rentiers and capitalists that caused speculation and housing price increases to reach historic records. In education, it destroyed the Ministry of Education and Science, cut research funding, further increased the precarisation of teachers. In healthcare, it deepened the underfunding of the NHS and handed health centres and hospitals over to private companies, resulting in an exodus of healthcare workers to the private sector, more emergency services being disorganised and shut down, and a drastic increase in waiting lists, births in ambulances and mortality.
The government completely abandoned us when we faced the greatest difficulties. During last year’s catastrophic fires or the storms at the beginning of this year, the government left the affected population and local authorities completely abandoned, resulting in deaths and destruction that were entirely avoidable. The overwhelming majority of people whose homes were damaged by Storm Kristin continue to live in these degrading conditions, without being offered any alternative housing solution or any assistance with repairs. We are literally being sacrificed by this government for the profits of the national and international bourgeoisie. And it even takes advantage of our misfortune to push forward its agenda of precarisation, militarism, etc., as in the case of the Portugal Transformation, Recovery and Resilience Programme (PTRR), disguising it as recovery aid.
And right now, in the face of the imperialist war in Iran, while the energy and food distribution oligopolies use it as an excuse to speculate on prices far above the real costs — with Portugal being the eurozone country where prices have risen the most — the government has not introduced a single measure that could relieve workers, but instead guaranteed the transfer of 600 million to the bourgeoisie.
In these two years, the government has made us poorer, with fewer rights, forced us to move to homes increasingly far from city centres or even to live in self-built housing, and destroyed the healthcare and education systems on which we depend. On the other hand, it multiplied the benefits granted to big capital and the petty bourgeoisie. Thanks to this, companies on the Portuguese stock exchange achieved record profits in 2025 and the richest 10% now hold more than 60% of the national wealth.
Also on the international plane, the AD government allied itself with the fascist government of Israel and the fascising government of the USA in their imperialist objectives. It refused to cut all relations with the Zionist state of Israel while it committed genocide against the Palestinian people — and now also against the Lebanese people. To NATO, it committed itself to spending 2% of GDP on defence as early as 2025, requesting for this purpose a loan of 5.8 billion, money that is desperately needed for public healthcare, education and housing. In the war against Iran, the AD took a further step in its subservience to these governments by allowing the use of the Lajes base to launch their deadly attacks — including killer drones — against innocent civilians in Iran. They intend to increase military personnel by several thousand and, if we allow them, they will enthusiastically sacrifice Portuguese youth for the interests of US or European imperialism.
The defeat of reformism was inevitable in the face of the growing capitalist crisis. The declining Western bourgeoisies, faced with the advance of the imperialist bloc led by China, are increasingly placing their bets on the far right and fascism: led by US Trumpism, all Western right-wing political formations are shifting to the far right. The PSD is no exception, having fully adopted the Trumpist and Chega discourse and programme. It can no longer be described as “traditional right-wing”. This is, without a shadow of a doubt, a far-right government — of bosses and landlords, of militarism and war, of subservience to US imperialism.
Its alliance with Chega and its anti-worker, anti-immigrant, sexist and queerphobic policies and rhetoric — such as the recent attack on gender self-determination — have promoted the growth of the far right and fascism in Portugal, as well as a drastic increase in hate crimes and violence against immigrants, women and queer people. The latest alliance between the PSD and Chega, proposing joint lists for the external bodies of Parliament — which allowed Chega to appoint a judge to the Constitutional Court and elect two representatives to the Superior Council of the Judiciary and one MP to the Superior Security Council — paves the way for further attacks.
We can no longer tolerate all this violence against our class. Consequent mass struggle in the streets is the only path to defeat the far-right government and fascism!
Build a democratic and combative general strike to bring down the government of the bosses and fascism!
Abandoned by social democracy and the reformist left, the working class took into its own hands the task of opposing this government. It was the pressure of the working class that forced the trade union bureaucracies to call the general strike of December 11. A historic strike in which the three million workers who took part demonstrated not only total rejection of the labour package, but also rejection of the government and the far right. The large mobilisations of April 25 and May 1 this year, with anti-fascist and anti-government messages, were further proof of the strength and determination of our class to defeat not only the labour package, but also this government of the boasses and the fascists.
The CGTP resolution and the speech by its secretary-general, Tiago Oliveira, on this May 1 leave no room for doubt: the government is an “enemy of workers”, carrying out an “offensive against workers” and a “policy of assault on fundamental rights”. We agree. But then, why do they insist only on a defensive general strike focused on defeating the labour package? Shouldn’t the main workers’ organisation do everything possible to bring down a government it characterises in this way? Of course it should. In fact, wanting to defeat the labour package while keeping the government means allowing the attacks to continue in another form.
The issue is that the PCP, which politically leads the CGTP, respects the “rules of bourgeois democracy” written by the ruling class, according to which government is decided by a vote on a piece of paper every four years and trade union struggle is confined to economic issues. They refuse to use the general strike to build a political struggle capable of bringing down the government, let alone of overcoming the rotten capitalist system. The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, has no problem changing the political regime to defend its class interests. History is full of examples of imperialist wars and coups d’état carried out to establish regimes such as fascist dictatorships whenever the working class rises up and challenges the interests of the imperialist and national bourgeoisies. This month marks 100 years since one such coup was carried out in Portugal, plunging the working class into a long fascist night that lasted almost 50 years and from which it awoke thanks to the struggle of its brothers and sisters in Africa.
These bureaucratic leaderships also have another unfounded fear: that the fall of this government would strengthen the far right and could even bring a Chega government to power. It is a pessimistic view held by those who do not trust the working class or understand the potential of a combative general strike to revitalise left-wing organisations and movements. If fascism advanced in Portugal, it was precisely because for years the left abandoned opposition in the streets during the governments of António Costa — who governed for big capital — and during the first year and a half of Montenegro — who normalised and adopted Chega’s programme — while we lived increasingly worse and became increasingly poorer. When the working masses take to the streets, they sweep the fascists aside. But for that, they need a leadership with the correct programme and methods, one that believes in the working class and in its capacity to defeat the labour package, the government, the capitalist system…
First of all, it is necessary to unite the entire working class. A quarter of workers in Portugal are immigrants, and both trade unions and left-wing parties show little willingness to organise them or consistently defend their rights. It is unforgivable that the CGTP remains silent in the face of the government’s attacks on this important section of the working class and does not include any of their demands in the general strike. Bringing our immigrant brothers and sisters into the struggle means producing materials in their languages, going out to meet them, and adopting their demands for the general strike: demanding the repeal of the Nationality, Foreigners and Return Laws; the regularisation of all immigrant workers; the immediate abolition of AIMA and of the racist and fascist police forces that assault them in police stations and traffic them in the Alentejo.
Right afterwards, it is necessary to use the democratic methods of our class. The general strike cannot be seen as a single day of struggle called from the top down by the bureaucracy. It must be a process built over months, discussed by the rank and file in strike committees and assemblies bringing together all workers from each workplace, without sectarianism, without divisions of nationality, the company they work for or the type of contract they have. Discussing the list of demands, the planning of actions on strike days, the building of a strike fund… It is in these discussions that hesitant workers are convinced, that broad participation in the general strike can be guaranteed, and that no worker is left isolated in their participation and later becomes a victim of employer reprisals. All of this ensures that we workers take the construction of the strike into our own hands, increases our political consciousness and our confidence in ourselves and in our strength as a class.
A transitional programme capable of inspiring the entire working class and showing us the way forward even after the fall of the labour package (and the government) is also necessary. Demanding the repeal of the labour laws from the Troika years, the strengthening of labour rights, raising the minimum wage to €1600 so that we can have a dignified life, increasing funding for the NHS and Education, the expropriation of homes in the hands of banks and real-estate funds so that everyone has a home to live in, the nationalisation of banking and of the fundamental sectors of the economy under the control of our class in order to democratise production and allow us to control prices, rejecting imperialist war and redirecting the millions invested in war towards public services…
Only a general strike built by everyone, democratically and with advanced demands, can defeat the labour package and the government. We call on all workers to build the general strike of June 3 democratically in every workplace and to join it en masse! We must put all our strength into defeating the labour package on that day, as a first step towards defeating the government. But we will not be discouraged if the labour package does not fall and proceeds to a vote in Parliament. Whether the labour package falls or not, we must view this day as another step in the construction of an increasingly powerful plan of struggle. And for that reason, all workers must build and maintain strike committees and assemblies functioning beyond June 3, and elect delegates who, in a national strike committee, can discuss an escalating plan of struggle, a 48-hour general strike or more until we defeat the government and win our demands. These committees will be the foundations of the future workers’ government.
The response to a system dragging us towards fascism, imperialist wars, genocide, pandemics and ecological disaster can only come from consequent mass struggle and the building of a revolutionary leadership whose objective is socialism.
All out to the general strike of June 3! Build it democratically in every workplace!
Develop an escalating plan of struggle until we bring down the government, win rights and stop fascism!
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