1. The PCP marks the International Women’s Day by promoting several actions, taking place in the whole country, from 12 to 12 March, also with the distribution of a leaflet.

The message addressed on this date by the PCP to women, recalls the reasons behind the proclamation of the International Women’s Day, in 1910, joining the struggle of women, by demanding the fulfillment of equality, in the law and in life.
We signal our everyday commitments and women’s struggle for the necessary change in their lives, demanding the right to jobs with rights, the valuing of their social and labour statute and career progression, the right to time to work and to rest, time for their family and children, time to participate in the social, political, cultural and sporting life.

We also wish to salute all men and women who, in their broad united organisations – notably trade unions, the General Confederation of the Portuguese Workers (CGTP-IN), the Women’s Democratic Movement (MDM), among other organisations – will celebrate this date with the belief that the fulfillment of equality cannot be postponed in women’s life multiple dimensions, the right to exercise their own specific rights, inseparably linked to the implementation of a path of social justice and progress, which the people and country need.

Defending Women’s Rights

1. Stopping the policy of exploitation and impoverishment
During the last decades, with particularly intensity in the last four years, the right-wing policy created a deep regression in living and working conditions, in national production, in employment, in salaries, in rights, downgrading public services and state fundamental responsibilities.
The consequences are clear – the very serious situation of women in the labour world – as shown in high unemployment rates, youth unemployment, unemployment of women with degrees, precarious labour contracts, part-time work, lower wages, wage discrimination, also as a result of maternity. This is the reality hitting the majority of women, working or unemployed.

A reality affecting other dimensions of women’s lives, with increasing hardship in reconciling personal and family life with work, in the growing number of women in shift work, also on Saturdays and Sundays, from a heavier burden on their household/domestic lives resulting from the brutal loss of family income and from the time spent traveling between work and home.

The poverty rate among women rose: unemployed women who cannot find a job nor unemployment benefits; women workers who, despite working, earn very low wages; women pensioners with a long working careers earning miserable pensions; disabled women who are unemployed and without social protection; the freeze and cuts of social allowances – Insertion Social Income, Family Allowance, Old Age Solidarity Compliment, Pre – Birth Allowance and Unemployment Social Benefit, among other. Thousands of women are forced to emigrate – others “become” “inactive” (in the statistics), when, in practical terms, their vast majority gave up looking for a job or simply survives in the undeclared economy.
Responding to women’s most pressing problems:

With truth and conviction, the PCP declares that women’s life cannot continue as it is and intervenes in the current political situation to implement measures that reinstate rights and incomes stolen by the PSD/CDS, whose election defeat on October 4th and their exit from government prevented the continuation of their project of added exploitation and impoverishment of the country.

The PCP has been carrying out an intense activity, namely in Parliament, to respond to the most serious problems felt by women, who are the majority of workers and of the Portuguese people.

We value the positive measures that have been adopted since then, for which the PCP gave a decisive contribution, although some of them are far from meeting our proposals and especially far from responding to the necessary rupture with the right-wing policy.
Among the, we underline:

- The reinstatement of the Voluntary Abortion Law, with the elimination of mechanisms of blackmail and payment of medical fees. A reinstatement that required two successive votes in Parliament in the space of 3 months, as a result of Cavaco Silva’s Presidential veto, who, nearly finishing his term of office, attempted to impose the obscurantist PSD and CDS position, instead of approving the will expressed in a Parliament Bill , resulting from the 2007 Referendum.
- The reinstatement of that law is inseparable from the enactment of women’s right to health and to their sexual and reproductive health. Other positive signs may be found in the measures being adopted to strengthen primary health care, the hiring of more doctors and lower medical fees for specific groups of patients.
- The elimination of wage cuts of public employees and civil servants, in place until December 2015, the creation of conditions to reinstate the 35 – hour week for civil servants, the removal of legislation affecting the teachers’ dignity; the reinstatement of 4 stolen public holidays, the reduction of the surplus on Income Tax– in a progressive manner and to be fully removed in 2017 – the protection of family homes from fiscal seizure, raise of the National Minimum Salary to 530 euros ( although distant from the 600 euros proposed by the PCP), the raise of the Family Allowance, of the Insertion Social Income and of the Old Age Solidarity Compliment.
Meanwhile, fully aware that we need further measures to respond to concrete problems, the PCP launches initiatives in Parliament: enlarging the coverage of the Unemployment Social Benefit, the net increase of old age and retirement pensions, the fight against job precariousness, the removal of professional requalifications in public administration, the suspension of the increases of house rents and evictions and a new system of rental aid, the hiring of scientific researchers with grants, the effective hiring of higher Education teachers and the progressive application of the 35 – hour week to all the workers.

Acting against discriminations

PCP has been proposing over time measures that can allow the adoption of effective mechanisms to combat and penalize salary discriminations, or discriminations related to motherhood and fatherhood in workplaces.

As a result of some of these legislative initiatives a set of resolutions were approved in the previous legislature, that the previous Government PSD/CDS did not yield any progress.

Highlighting those that were approved aiming the reinforcement of the instruments used for protection and appreciation of effective women’s rights at work (AR Resolution nº48/2013); the combat to direct or indirect salary discriminations (45/2013); the combat to impoverishing and the acuteness of poverty among women (47/2013); the reinforcement of the Authority for The Work Conditions’ means and the creation of a plan to combat motherhood and fatherhood discriminations (115/2015). PCP will continue to intervene so that concretion will be given to fundamental aspects of these resolutions, of which we highlight:
- The adoption of a National Combat Plan to direct or indirect discrimination through the intervention of the Authority for the Work Conditions (ACT) and the Commission for Equality at Work and in the Job (CITE) prioritising the inspective action.
- Formulation of a National Combat Plan to discriminations because of motherhood and fatherhood implementing within the inspective and punitive action of ACT and CITE.
- Annual oversight of labour practices of the companies adhering to the Accession Agreement within the Companies Forum to Gender Equality, namely regarding salary appreciation and remuneration complements; elimination of direct and indirect discriminations; respect and fulfilment of motherhood and fatherhood rights; guarantee of the right to conciliate personal, familiar and professional life, and respect for collective hiring.
- Improvement of the analysis’ instruments of women’s situation, namely about their job situation, with disintegration by sector of activity and category, age groups, salary levels and salary differences between women and men.

Fulfil equality in law and in life

PCP considers that promises around equality policies of successive governments that were subordinated to the European Union’s guidelines do not serve the just aspiration of women for equality as they deceptively claim to do. On the other hand, they are instruments of hiding the negative impacts of right-wing policies on the aggravation of inequalities and discriminations that weigh up on women.

Honouring its commitments, PCP will continue to intervene in the vindication of women’s rights and their emancipatory struggle prioritising a policy that promote equality, which is inseparable from the rupture with the right-wing policy and the fulfilment of a patriotic and left-wing policy based on:
- Effectuation of women’s right to work with rights and their participation with equality in every sector of activity;
- Progressive implementation of the 35 hours work schedule for every worker;
- Appreciation of salaries and effective combat to direct or indirect salary discriminations;
- Guarantee of motherhood and fatherhood protection at work, in health and within Social Security;
- Guarantee of universality of family allowance to every child and teen;
- Creation of a public network of day care centres, with quality and accessible prices;
- Promoting protection to women victims of violence, increasing the means of the State necessary to an effective response in this area and intervening on the multiple causes that have been contributing to the growth of this scourge;
- Adoption of a Plan For Combating Exploitation in Prostitution because prostitution is not an option, it is an debasing violation of women’s rights;
- Promotion of a change of attitudes and mentalities that counteract concepts based on the subordination of women’s role in family, at work and in society, of the strongest over the more fragile, patent in the violence practised over women and children that reflect power relations in society determined by the domain of the dominant classes over the exploited classes;
- Promotion of informative campaigns about women’s rights, anchored in April’s values and in the principles and rights consecrated in the Portuguese Republic Constitution.