With allegations of ‘monopolistic domination,’ the Secretary of State for Employment, Miguel Cabrita, has laid into the treatment of workers at the recently purchased telecoms company, PT.
The operator was bought two years ago by the French group Altice, owned by billionaire Patrick Drahi and as part of the consolidation plan, many workers have found themselves transferred to subsidiaries and suppliers.
Cabrita said that "an action is already under way," triggered by the Working Conditions Authority (ACT) on this process of transferring PT workers to other companies.
In the face of allegations of abuse, after PT Comunicações was sold to the Altice group, "there is already an ongoing action brought by ACT specifically directed to this matter.”
Much of the IT team has gone to Winprovit and 118 workers have gone to the Altice-Tnord group, Sudtel and to Visabeira.
The workers are concerned that they will lose accrued benefits and that their new contracts are inferior to their PT ones.
"The assurance I can give is that our aim is to safeguard workers' rights and law enforcement and therefore ACT will have to verify whether a legal mechanism is being used in accordance with the letter and spirit of the law which is to secure the rights of the workers," said Cabrita, adding that the situation at PT Portugal, "has been closely monitored by the Labour Ministry and the Government."
PT workers have called a strike for Friday in protest at these transfers which many claim to have been coercive.
The Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Guilherme W. d'Oliveira Martins, warned that "State intervention in a totally private company, with capital held by another private company, is restricted to ensuring compliance with regulatory and contractual laws," with any direct intervention restricted to PT’s agreed public service remit of providing telephone directories and public payphones.