Social partners renew dialogue

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In July 2000, the Portuguese social partners and government relaunched the social dialogue process, following a gap of several months. As previously agreed in January, the dialogue will deal with four issues – jobs and training, health and safety, redistribution and productivity, and social security – within specific working groups.

The Standing Commission for Social Concertation (Comissão Permanente de Concertação Social, CPCS), a committee of the tripartite Economic and Social Council (Conselho Económico e Social, CES), met at the end of July 2000, following a gap of several months, in order to prepare the next round of central social dialogue, which will take place after the summer break. At the meeting, the Prime Minister, together with two members of the cabinet, analysed the economic situation in the light of the negative impacts of rises in fuel prices, interest rates and domestic debt, as well as the continuing structural problems of low productivity and levels of qualification. The government wanted to discuss incomes policy in a medium-term perspective, while bearing in mind the issues of productivity, inflation and the average value of pay as a whole. The Prime Minister guaranteed that if the purchasing power of civil service staff's pay had fallen due to inflation, it would be restored.

The social partners, and especially the Confederation of Portuguese Industry (Confederação da Indústria Portuguesa, CIP) and the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses, CGTP), have expressed their concern about the fact that the macroeconomic situation was not reviewed at the end of the first half of 2000, given that the government's earlier economic forecasts are not expected to be fulfilled. Given the fall in purchasing power and the rise in domestic debt and job insecurity, CGTP is calling for an increase in the minimum national wage and a more dynamic vocational training programme.

The General Workers' Union (União Geral de Trabalhadores, UGT) underlines that it is important to discuss in depth the processes relating to redistribution, productivity and social security benefits. The issues of immigration and labour shortages in some sectors were also mentioned at the July meeting.

The renewed concertation and social dialogue process, which is based around the Standing Commission for Social Concertation, will take place in four working groups which were created in January 2000 (PT0001179F), covering:

• employment and training policies;

• working conditions and health and safety at work;

• productivity factors; and

• social security.

The social partners have asked that a minister should be made directly responsible for the negotiations – it is thought that this could be the Minister of Labour and Solidarity – given that there are no government representatives in the working groups.

The social concertation process is facing a number of issues. First, there is debate at to the nature of the results that the negotiations will actually produce. The possibility of reaching a new pact to follow the 1996-9 Strategic Concertation Pact (Pacto de Concertação Estratégica) (PT9808190F) was ruled out in January. At the same time, the current National Action Plan (NAP) for employment (PT0006194N), in response to the EU Employment Guidelines, stresses (in its chapter on modernising work organisation) that "the social concertation process currently involves the negotiation of a medium-term agreement concerning employment, the labour market and training." Furthermore, as mentioned above, the government is also stressing the importance of negotiating an incomes policy for the near future - the end-product of the current negotiations will therefore constitute the model for the future.

Second, past experience points to the need for greater coordination between the social partners and parliament in matters that require legislation. Following the passing of the recent Basic Law on Social Security, the social partners declared their willingness to take part in the discussion as to how the law is to be implemented (PT0007100F). The Prime Minister assured the social partners that when social security-related issues that had been agreed in the social concertation process came before parliament, he would defend them.

Finally, a number of commentators (as reported in the Público newspaper on 22 May 2000) have questioned the efficacy of the social concertation process in terms of proving the process of social dialogue and direct participation at lower levels (sectoral and company) or of increasing the degree of trust shown during collective bargaining.