The positions of the presidents of the two employers' confederations were given at the entrance of the Social Dialogue meeting, where the Government is presenting the pilot project of the four-day working week to partners.

"What seems to us is that it was not a priority topic to present at the Social Dialogue, after the agreement [on income and competitiveness] in which there are many aspects to be implemented", said the president of the CCP, João Vieira Lopes.

Regarding the project for the four-day week, Vieira Lopes said that he did not see "any inconvenience in doing experiments", but stressed that "there was no justification" for a meeting of the Social Dialogue "just for that" as there were issues "that are a priority, such as the problem energy" or the implementation of the income agreement signed a few weeks ago.

The CCP president considered that there may be companies "with a profile" suitable for the implementation of the four-day week, as is the case of companies "in the area of ​​technologies, culture, creativity, advertising", but he foresees difficulties in companies with Customer Service.

"Anything that has to do with opening hours to the public, that would imply hiring more people which, in addition to being a cost increase, there is the problem that there are no people [to hire]", he said.

“Premature”

The president of CTP, Francisco Calheiros, also said that it was "premature" to discuss the topic, weeks after the signing of the income and competitiveness agreement and at a time when the parliament had just generally approved the proposed State Budget for 2023, with still under discussion in the specialty.

"We have just signed an agreement on competitiveness and wages in order to increase wages and, at the moment, when we are going to analyse a study that increases the work week from five to four days, it is a 20% decrease in productivity. I'm not seeing how to combine these two situations", considered Francisco Calheiros.

The general secretary of the CGTP, Isabel Camarinha, stressed that "the issue of reducing working hours has been a long-standing demand" by the inter-union, which defends a weekly schedule of 35 hours for all workers.

"[On] this issue of the four-day week, we don't have any problem, as long as it doesn't have as a condition the increase in the daily working day, which is an achievement of workers over 100 years old", said Isabel Camarinha.

According to the executive, the experience “cannot involve a salary cut and must imply a reduction in weekly hours”.