Representatives from the Algarve’s hotel and restaurant workers’ union demonstrated along the streets of Faro today, handing out leaflets outlining their protest against low wages and poor working conditions.
"This action aimed to contact workers to clarify the contradictory situation in the sector, where, on the one hand, there is a growth of company profits, and, on the other hand, wages and workers' purchasing power is decreasing and working conditions are deteriorating," the union leaders explained.
The action ended in front of the headquarters of the Algarve Hoteliers Association, which has refused to accept the union's proposals for 2019, at which point a petition was delivered.
"Faced with the refusal of employers to restore the lost purchasing power of workers in recent years and to the deterioration of working conditions, in particular with the increase in the deregulation of working hours that calls into question the reconciliation of work with personal and family life, the Union is calling for strengthening of workers’ organisation and the intensification of the struggle to raise wages and improve working and living conditions," read the statement.
On the plus side, 750,000 workers in Portugal who receive the National Minimum Wage will be better off as from January 1, next year, by €20 a month.
The Council of Ministers this week approved the wage rise from €580 to €600 a month.
This follows an increase from €557 in 2017 to €580 in 2018.
The French minimum wage is going up €100 a month next year, to €1,310 a month.
Spanish workers will benefit from a 22% increase in the minimum wage next year, to €900 a month.
