Four days after chaining herself to the office stairwell at Clube Praia da Rocha, Marilu Santana is adamant that she will remain until her wages from last year are paid.
The publicity surrounding the case of workers owed money since their seasonal contracts ended last October does not seem to have had any affect on Green Stairs, the managing company whose management continues to blame 'lack of funds.'
Management lost yet more credibility when it was discovered that it had signed up new employees for the season now underway while leaving the old ones in varying states of economic hardship.
Algarve MP, Paulo Sá, turned up today and pledged his support, offering to raise the matter in parliament, hopefully before Sra Santana is hospitalised.
Sá says this matter is beyond a joke and that workers should receive their pay for work done, or the law should step in to ensure that they are not evicted and do not starve.
The MP said there is legislation but the state seems unwilling to use it in cases such as these despite proven economic hardship.
On Monday morning Paulo Martins, the administrator of Green Steps, condescended to have a meeting with union boss Iago Jacinto, but refused to meet any representative from the unpaid workers.
Jacinto later reported that Martins repeated that there was no money and that the fault was that of the apartment owners who owed the management company money. Martins had promised to pay up, but not until June and had no dietary or financial advice for the unpaid workers in the intervening months.
The failure of the meeting to produce anything more than weak promises ensured the number of protestors rose steadily througout the moring, joined by tolls campaigner João Vasconcelos and council colleague, Nelson Freitas.
The crowd grew as did the volume of the music. The police were called but on arrival told the protestors to turn down the volume a bit, officers displaying the same solidarity as last week when faced with a chained woman and unpaid workers.
Green Stairs has a history of poor management control as last year the electricity to 300 of the 600 Praia da Rocha apartments it manages was cut off due to non payment of bills.
