New agreement signed in textiles

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In May 2000, a new collective agreement was signed for the Portuguese textiles sector, providing for a 6.5% pay increase and cutting working time. Separate but identical deals were struck for the north and south of the country - in the former case, this was the first such accord for 12 years.

May 2000 saw the conclusion of a new sectoral agreement for the textiles industry by the Portuguese Federation of Unions of Workers in the Textile, Woollens, Clothing, Footwear and Leather Industries (Federação dos Sindicatos dos Trabalhadores Texteis, Lanífícios, Vestuário, Calçado e Peles de Portugal, FESETE), the National Association of Clothing Manufacturers (Associação do Vestuário e Confecção, ANIVEC) and the Portuguese Association of Garment Industries (Associação dos Industriais do Vestuário, APIV) (PT0002181N). Two separate agreements with identical contents were signed: one for the north of the country - the first to be signed for 12 years - and the other for the south - the first for seven years.

The agreement provides for:

• an average wage increase of 6.5% (inflation is expected to be 2%) with a minimum monthly rise of EUR 12.5;

• a 40-hour working week, which is noteworthy in that it ends a dispute that has gone on since 1996 about how to count rest breaks in working time (PT9812117N). From now on, breaks are to be considered as part of working time. For the garments sector, this means a working time reduction of 1 hour 40 minutes per week; and

• a 60% increase in the daily meal subsidy to EUR 2.25.

According to the trade unions, the new agreement is the result of pressures that they have exerted at various levels over a number of years.

The textiles sector was also in the spotlight in May 2000 because of a meeting organised in Guimarães, in the Vale do Ave region, by the Association of European Textiles Regions and the Minho Industrial Association (Associação Industrial do Minho, AIM). The meeting dealt with the following issues:

• the globalisation of trade and the opening up of trade with Asian markets recently negotiated within the World Trade Organisation (WTO);

• the need for this opening up of trade to be accompanied by equal access to other markets, assuring reciprocity, which will in turn assure effective competition;

• harmonisation of customs tariffs;

• the need for greater EU control over dumping and the manufacturing of counterfeit goods; and

• the need for the European textiles regions to be heard when decisions affecting the textiles industry are taken by the EU authorities.

The meeting also stressed that the strategy of the European textiles sector must be high-quality production and innovation in design. Portuguese companies also supported increased organisation of employers in the sector.

The Portuguese textiles sector is undergoing rapid change at present. The number of Portuguese textiles, woollens and garments companies setting up in Latin America, Africa and central and eastern European countries has been on the increase, in some cases using subcontracting. At the same time, a number of multinational companies have relocated form Portugal, causing a loss of 80,000 jobs in the sector in 10 years (out of a total of about 300,000).

During the meeting in Guimarães, trade unions demonstrated outside the convention hall. According to FESETE, the unions did not take part in the discussion because there was no formal invitation extended to them by the organisers, just a personal invitation to the federation's coordinator to attend one of the panel discussions. FESETE considered that not enough importance was given to employment and social issues in the debate, especially with regard to the future. In the opinion of the federation, the future is of special concern since Vale do Ave is a region dominated by a single industry (textiles) and the European textiles market will definitively be opened to external trade from 2005.