1 – António Pires de Lima, on TVI, Thursday evening, talking about the specifications of the privatization of TAP: “We can not extend this agreement [protection of workers against possible redundancies] the unions that did not want to sit with us at the table and did not sign the social peace agreement on this privatization “
António Pires de Lima, late on Friday, at a press conference: all TAP employees are protected from collective dismissal for 30 months because, beyond the agreement with the unions, “prevails the general rule of law”. What is at stake in this spectacular retreat of a minister had by wise and competent is not just a heartbreaking error legal analysis of an intention to high sensitivity; which disrupts this episode is the fact that the government that has invested the noble mission of the release from State falls well as easily, the temptation to manipulate the free will of workers and trade unions that do not obey him.
After all that happened, Pires de Lima and his frantic Transport Secretary of State declined because they were unable to go ahead. Early in the morning the Prime Minister was preparing the way of inflection. Faced with opposition apalermada and unable to go beyond the broken record of “austerity” and the like, Passos Coelho tried to say that Pires de Lima outside misunderstood, that “enterprise agreements have to be respected by future buyers.” By then already union members had spoken of “childishness” of the minister, as commentators had warned for primary political error, since unsuspected personalities to be against the government and the CDS, as António Lobo Xavier, had expressed their amazement at what announced.
Pires de Lima back down invoking the law that the night before Sergio Monteiro assured not apply to the agreement that protected unionized “good” and left the union “bad” at the mercy of the environment of moods or plans next majority shareholder of TAP. Wanting to perpetuate its power beyond the privatization, the government was prepared to do so under the dictates of a musty paternalism which gives the State the right to pull the little ears of those who dare to pay dues politically incorrect unions. As before with the priors of the parish, indulgences would be granted only to the part of the herd that door as well. The speeches in offspring of “liberation” of society that the Prime Minister so fond of noise were suspended for a few hours, in favor of a command and dignified attitude control of a collectivist state.
If by chance the punishment for workers who are bothersome unions cable was taken, it would have formalized a new form of social coercion. The pressure and the privilege is long political thrown weapons to protect clienteles and punish dissidents, was already known. What now would be different is that its use would be made of wide-open way. In the near future, any Secretary of State hardly yield to the temptation to use the same discrimination and blackmail to impose a settlement. If the other party not to sign, or worse, if the colonial insurgents the proposal, would become the target of vengeance of Government. As the Government of the arm is long and powerful, this kind of blackmail could end up in the demand for political and electoral favors. What the Minister of Finance made in relation to TAP was put into practice the promise made one day by Jorge Coelho, who in unfortunate statement warned that “those who meddle with the PS leads.”
It was, rest, so thought a few hundred TAP employees who, as reported on the PUBLIC on Friday, bother to align with the unions seduced by the Government. The pressure was paying off. Bad strike were being punished and the protected good. The right of everyone to choose labor representation according to their values had been irreparably compromised. To be or not to be competent, diligent and productive not matter in this formula management; more important than the interest of the company and its shareholders was to terms with the “guilty”, sent to the other side of the barricade Government. The Government liberalism champion was promoting a brief episode of social engineering and policy.
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