Retail businesses in Oporto negotiate new working time arrangements

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A new collective agreement, signed in summer 1998, provides for shops to open on Saturday afternoons in Oporto, Portugal, though the new working hours will apply only to workers recruited from 1999.

The collective agreement covering retail businesses in Oporto has been renegotiated in 1998, having been unchanged for some years. The new deal reflects wider discussions between large-scale retailers and small shop owners regarding shop opening hours and employees' working hours. The discussions arise from the negotiation of agreements for the different sectors of retail by organisations representing different employer groups. Larger retailers are allowed more flexibility in the scheduling of working hours, while the overriding issue is weekend opening hours.

The new Oporto retail collective agreement concluded by the Union of Northern Retail Workers (Sindicato do Comércio do Norte, CESNORTE) and the Oporto Merchants Association (Associação de Comerciantes do Porto) provides that retail businesses in the district will be open on Saturday afternoons. The new rules governing employees' working hours to accommodate Saturday opening come into effect in January 1999 and will affect all workers hired after that date. Current employees are free to choose whether to work under the new work schedule. Workers will continue to have two days off, one of which may vary from week to week.

The agreement also provides for: a lunch subsidy of PTE 100 on weekdays and PTE 820 on Saturdays; an increase in maternity leave to 110 days (the law requires only 90 days); and a new career progression scheme, under which workers who have undergone 200 hours of vocational development training qualify for promotion to a higher position.