Portugal approves labour law reform for parliament
Portugal’s government has approved a labour law reform that would extend fixed-term contracts and lift outsourcing limits after layoffs, with implications for employers and workers.
Portugal’s government has approved a labour law reform bill and will now send it to parliament, reopening several contentious changes for employers and workers, including longer fixed-term contracts, the end of limits on outsourcing after collective redundancies and a mechanism allowing workers to add up to two days to their holidays.
Labour Minister Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho said the proposal restores the government’s initial approach on some of the most disputed issues. The bill would raise the maximum duration of fixed-term contracts to three years from two, and of open-ended fixed-term contracts to five years from four. It also fully revokes the 2023 restriction that prevents companies carrying out collective redundancies or job-extinction dismissals from outsourcing services.
The proposal also broadens the cases in which workers found to have been unlawfully dismissed may not be reinstated, extending that possibility to all companies, while increasing the minimum compensation to 45 days from 30. On holidays, the bill would allow justified absences requested by workers to anticipate or extend a holiday period by up to two days a year, which the minister said does not amount to an increase in statutory annual leave.
At the same time, the government kept some changes made during talks with social partners. For micro-companies, mandatory continuous training would be set at 30 hours rather than the 20 hours initially proposed. For working time banks agreed directly between employer and employee, any positive balance left at the end of the six-month reference period would be paid with a 25% premium. After a pregnancy interruption, fathers would be entitled to up to three days off work.
The bill is based on the “Trabalho XXI” draft presented last year and includes more than 50 revisions, including 12 proposals from the UGT trade union confederation, according to the minister. But on several key issues the government dropped concessions made during negotiations, meaning the reform now faces a political test in parliament.
Originally published at Eco.pt
