At least a hundred people joined in a protest march between the town hall and the municipal market of Vila Real de Santo António against the decision of the council to privatise waste collection, street cleaning and the domestic supply of water.
The protest was convened by the Local and Regional Administration Workers' Union, Public Companies, Concessionaires and the like (STAL) and brought together union leaders, locals, council workers and workers at the municipal company, Sociedade de Gestão Urbana, which currently runs the services that the council aims to privatise.
Hélio Encarnação, coordinator of STAL in the Algarve, said the purpose of the protest was to alert the local population and workers to the need for "essential services, such as water and rubbish collection, to remain public" and "not be delivered to a private company."
The union leader said that if the work was privatised, this option leads to "low job security and a job without rights and means higher prices for the general population.”
Hélio Encarnação was highly critical of the secrecy with which the council has conducted the process, "without the participation of the union" and "without the workers knowing what will happen to them" should a private company take over.
"The council has yet to explain whether workers will maintain the contracts they have with council's municipal company. We have little information from the council and we were not consulted throughout the whole process," complained Encarnação.
It has been the lack of communication to date that has really concerned those affected by the proposed changes, "doubts and uncertainties" are widespread “no one has yet told us anything” say workers.
As the government keeps pressure on local councils to reduce the number of municipal companies, is the VRSA council plan to hive off these presumably profitable services a sensible one or are there personal financial motives at stake, as has been the case in many council privatisations where the only visible change in service has been the raising of prices and the sharp rise in salaries paid to former council managers who switch to the private sector.
