Portuguese union workers start mobilizing for general strike

Angry at the Portuguese government' economic austerity measures, union workers started on Thursday to mobilize for a general strike in protest of the difficult situation they are facing. Members of CGTP, Portugal's largest union confederation, will have meetings and demonstrations in the coming seven days, building momentum for a general strike on November 24. The transport trade unions will stop the service for some hours on Thursday. For the trade unions, the political decisions that include a 24 percent reduction of the civil servants and pensioners' wages, taxes-hikes and cuts in health and education expenses are taking the country to a dead end. "Portugal is following step by step the same path that led Greece to a precipice. We must change the economic policy, because it will take us backwards on social and political levels," explained Manuel Carvalho da Silva, the leader of the CGTP. Even Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva, from the center-right wing, said that the measures could be unjustified. Speaking on the wage cuts, Silva said that "they might contradict the Constitutional principle of fiscal equity". The president also said that the measures "might exceed the admissible sacrifices that can be asked to the people".