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The work organization rules in Greater Lisbon and Greater Porto change as of Tuesday, and the government imposes an obligation on employers to adopt mirror shifts and hourly shifts. The aim is to limit the concentration of people in public transport and in workplaces in regions marked by the intensity of the daily commute of workers.
The changes were generally approved yesterday at a meeting of the Council of Ministers that determined the new rules for the state of contingency that will be in force throughout the country as of next week, with the government advancing a decree-law that establishes a “ Exceptional and transitory regime for the reorganization of work ”applied to the entire country and to foresee administrative infractions, also framing a resolution that imposes that the regulations be mandatory for metropolitan areas.
“As for the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto, it is necessary to make a greater effort to avoid the concentration of people. In particular, whether in public transport or in the workplace,” defended the prime minister, António Costa, at the end of the meeting.
The goal is to maintain the mandatory telecommuting rule, whenever possible, in these regions, where the intention is still to impose mirror shifts and mismatched hours when workers come in and out, as well as during lunch breaks. The new regime will be discussed with the social partners on Wednesday, the day after the country enters a state of contingency.
On the part of employers’ organizations, the Confederation of Commerce and Services (CCP) hopes to see “the letter” of the decree-law to evaluate the norms, but it has difficulties to apply them universally. The president, João Vieira Lopes, anticipates difficulties if they include industry and commerce. “If a commercial establishment has peak hours, it will have to have more workers in peak hours. It will not have, for reasons of lag, the same number of people in peak hours as in other hours.”
In union organizations, there is also the expectation of seeing the rules published and discussed. The CGTP sees positive measures to reduce the risk of workers in the workplace – as well as in public transport, it emphasizes – but warns of the need to safeguard rights and for companies to listen to workers’ representatives. “It will have to be with the guarantee of the rights of the workers. In other words, with regard to the organization of work time and reconciliation with personal and family life ”, says the general secretary, Isabel Camarinha, who points to one of Inter’s demanding priorities. yesterday, after the National Council: “The gradual reduction of the working day could also be a way to ensure a lower concentration of workers.”
With the diploma still to be published, the specialist in labor law Pedro da Quitéria Faria predicts that the obligation to impose in Lisbon and Porto will find limits and exceptions depending on the type of activities in question. “There has to be a legal exclusion here for some companies or sectors.”
The lawyer does not see, from the beginning, difficulties neither in the implementation nor in the control of the measures, which can be done based on the mandatory registration of entry and exit of workers. But he admits that in theory they can lead to some conflict in the workplace. “It may happen that, if there is no agreement, labor disputes arise, because somehow there is a deregulation of something that was contracted or that arose from a collective bargaining instrument from one day to the next, or practically from one day to the next. It remains to be seen how the legislator will put these obligations on paper. “
Maria Caetano is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
