The years may pass. We can live difficult times, like the ones we live in, but this Portuguese Communist Party does not forget and will be here, every May, to carry on for the future, our always heartfelt tribute to the peasant Catarina Eufémia from Baleizão, who with her formidable courage has become a shining symbol of the struggle of the combative agricultural proletariat of Alentejo, of the struggle of our people for freedom and for the emancipation of the workers and people, pride of Portuguese workers and of her Party.
Yes, we are here and we could not miss it, despite these hard times that we are experiencing of the Covid-19 epidemic outbreak and which challenge us to face with courage, with that courage that Catarina showed throughout her life, not only to face and overcome the consequences of this contagious virus that plagues us, but also to face those who take advantage of it to deepen the exploitation of the workers and people as is now happening.
Yes, we are here because we honour and never forget our fighters, our heroes and our martyrs, for whom we have a deep respect and admiration.
Here we are here so that we never lose the memory of those dark times, those dramatic events of May 19, 1954, when Catarina Eufémia bravely faced the fascist brute force, fell under their murderous bullets and which some try to whitewash.
We are here in tribute to Catarina and in her we extol the heroic struggle of the farm labourers of Alentejo. A tenacious and long struggle, which gave rise to examples of courage and heroism shown by thousands and thousands of agricultural proletarians, facing persecutions, prison, tortures to which they were subjected by the brutal fascist repression. We remember Catarina and it is the prospect of implementing Agrarian Reform that remains alive in the horizon of our struggle.
We pay tribute to Catarina and in this tribute we associate all the comrades killed by fascism, all the anti-fascists who lost their lives or suffered the consequences of their decision to face the heinous fascist regime - this terrorist dictatorship of the monopolies and big landowners.
We evoke the name Catarina and evoking it is the history and struggle of the PCP that now celebrates its centennial that is projected in our memory. The story of a Party that has always been at the forefront of the struggle of the workers and our people. Which took the lead in all combats against exploitation, oppression and inequality. A Party built, with the suffering and self-denial of women and men who did not allow themselves to be intimidated. That never bowed to repression. That never gave in, nor surrendered. That fought as long as it took, under all circumstances and taking all risks, to defeat the dictatorship, to assert and advance April, to uphold the interests of the workers and our people and their right to decide their future.
We are here and we could not miss it and today we have an added reason. This is also the right place, evoking the name of Catarina, the name of this legendary popular heroine, to reaffirm that her struggle and the struggle of her Party, which she firmly embraced, is today so needed and necessary, as it was in the past, in the defence and achievement of the right to wages and to work with rights and for a fairer and more fraternal society.
Yes, we will never stop looking back and at the honourable path we have travelled, but we will also never neglect the battles of the future.
As in the past, today the communist militants play a decisive role not only in organising and promoting the struggle, but our Party takes the political and institutional initiative to ensure the defence of the rights and interests of the workers and people.
In this month of May of Catarina, which is also the May of the workers and the exaltation of their just struggle, those who aspire to have the field open and free to deepen their exploration and apply the law of the jungle in labour relations, have started, in the name of combating the epidemic, a shameful campaign aimed at conditioning and paralyzing the action of the workers and their representative organisations in defence of their legitimate interests.
The terrorist action that the great interests of reigning capitalism and its followers unleashed against the initiatives of the CGTP-IN on May Day was not innocent, nor their concern was or is the health of workers. Their aim was to impose the lockdown of the struggle. Was to prevent and stifle the cry for alert and the demand for a solution to the social and economic problems that affect the workers and the people.
They were wrong and the workers were once again not intimidated. As they did not allow themselves to be intimidated, nor paralyze the hundreds of workers from Martifer and from the Industrial Complex of Sines who took to the streets this week in defence of jobs and wages, because they do not accept to be thrown into the dustbin, as disposable workers. Many with precarious ties, a trial period or who work for a day or hour and were left without any means of subsistence and who need be guaranteed and urgently, as the PCP has just proposed, an exceptional social support.
We are talking about thousands of workers across the country whose incomes were already very low and often occasional, who were left without any source of income, who need to be helped.
So often we are told that there is no money to deal with the problems of the workers and our people. But the truth is that there is never a shortage to help the banks, as happened a few days ago with the transfer to the Novo Banco of over 850 million Euros. This is an unacceptable situation. For this reason, on Friday, the PCP tabled a Bill in the Assembly of the Republic proposing that Banco Novo's integration into the public sphere should begin immediately.
We live in a time of worsening injustices and inequalities. Workers are hit by the effects of the epidemic and the use they make of it.
Health and safety conditions in the workplace are a fundamental aspect. Many workers are exposed to high-risk situations. We know that the virus can kill and we must prevent its spread and defend life. But we must not forget those who have their lives destroyed. There are hundreds of thousands of workers under layoff, tens of thousands of dismissals, a brutal cut in wages, unilateral changes in schedules, imposition of forced vacations and withdrawals of rights, including the denial of the use of maternity and paternity rights.
All of this, while at the same time we have seen the transfer of thousands of public euros to companies with millionaire profits and we see them using a huge operation, aimed at transferring a large part of their costs to the workers and Social Security and insisting on playing the worn-out recording of the need for sacrifices for workers, pointing to the perspective of years of worsening exploitation and limitation of social, trade union and political rights.
Many of them are large multinational companies. Large companies are the ones that most benefit from the layoff scheme, they are more than 50%!
It is in order to face this situation that the PCP, portraying the feelings, the needs and the aspirations of the workers and the people, tried with all means to demand the resolution of their problems, assuming an attitude of proposal in the framework of the Assembly of the Republic, for that purpose.
These are proposals that, if adopted, would answer the basics of the most pressing problems.
To start with, the proposal to forbid dismissals during this period, involving the replacement of the ties of all those dismissed in the meantime.
A proposal that must be associated with the just claim to guarantee 100% pay to all workers.
This is not only a fair measure for those who are completely ready to work at 100%, as it is necessary to avoid deepening the features of a recession that is approaching and which, if not restrained, will fall once again on the workers and people.
Just as fair is the PCP's proposal for the regulation of the health, hardship and risk allowance for workers in the public and private sectors, in addition to the requirement of an exceptional allowance for all workers who remained at work under particularly exposed duties.
Over the past few months many health workers, civil defence, security forces, garbage collectors, other sectors of the central administration and local government, among others, have been justly applauded, but this is not enough. It is time to move from applause and words to action.
Proposals that must be associated with the national emergency that represents the general increase in wages and the valorisation of careers and professions, as well as the repeal of the grievous norms of the labour legislation and measures of valorisation of work and workers.
In order to fight the impacts of the epidemic outbreak and guarantee the country's future, Portugal needs an alternative, patriotic and left-wing policy that ensures employment, defends wages and the rights of the workers and people, bolsters public services, promotes national production and ensures investment, necessary for a sovereign path of development.
An alternative that requires: the country's liberation from submission to the Euro in conjunction with the renegotiation of public debt; the valorisation of work and workers; the defence and promotion of national production and productive sectors; public control of the basic and strategic sectors of the economy; the guarantee of public administration and services at the service of the people and the country; a policy of fiscal justice and combating the privileges of big capital and big landowners; the defence of the democratic regime; the fight against corruption and the implementation of an independent and accessible justice for all.
The struggle against injustice and exploitation cannot be under lockdown!
It is by following the path of defending the interests of the workers and our people that they will find us, honouring our everlasting commitment!
We are a hundred-year old Party that had and has in its ranks, women like Catarina, who never turned away from the struggle, the difficulties and who will do everything to ensure a better and more decent life for those who work, a better life for all Portuguese.
