“We presented the proposal of the company's Board of Directors and a counter-proposal was voted on, which will now be presented in a final effort of understanding. The workers mandated the unions to, in the absence of an answer, start forms of strike action in the second half of May,” said Anabela Carvalheira, from FECTRANS - Federation of Transport and Communications Unions.

The union leader said that the “salary increases and career enhancement” are at stake, in addition to the “immediate filling of the operational framework and career progressions”.

Anabela Carvalheira declined to comment on whether or not there was an opening on the part of the Board of Directors to accept the workers' counterproposal, referring to the importance of metropolitan workers during the pandemic, noting that they were “the guarantors of the city's mobility”.

“These workers have to be recognised”, she stressed.