CGTP Walks Its 12.ª Greve Geral Pré-Aviso Into the Ministério do Trabalho — UGT Stays Off the Picket Line as Tiago Oliveira Targets 3 June 2026 for the First Public-and-Private-Sector Walkout Since the December Joint Action

The Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses delivered the formal pré-aviso for its 12.ª greve geral to the Ministério do Trabalho on Monday 11 May 2026, with Wednesday 3 June 2026 set as the date of the strike. The notice, signed by secretary-general Tiago Oliveira and confirmed across the CGTP federations, covers 'todos os trabalhadores dos setores público e privado, sindicalizados ou não' across a 24-hour window. The Jornal de Negócios confirmed on Wednesday 13 May that the União Geral de Trabalhadores will not join — UGT secretary-general Mário Mourão signalled in the post-Concertação Social briefing that the federation will defer any decision on its own forms of struggle until the final Concertação Social meeting closes the dossier formally.

The trigger

The strike call locks onto the labour-reform package that the Conselho de Ministros approved on Thursday 14 May 2026 and that now sits with Parliament. The CGTP has framed the package as the most regressive rewrite of the Código do Trabalho since the 2012 troika-era amendments, citing the dismissal-procedure block, the overtime and banco-de-horas recalibration, the teletrabalho rewrite, and the collective-bargaining caducidade tightening. Tiago Oliveira's framing in the 1 May Workers' Day intervention at the Lisbon Praça do Município set the operational target: 'exigir a retirada do pacote laboral e começar a discutir matérias que permitam aos trabalhadores sair das circunstâncias em que se encontram atualmente.'

The UGT split

The UGT decision to stay out of the 3 June action breaks the pattern of December 2025, when the two confederations — CGTP under Tiago Oliveira and UGT under Mário Mourão — staged their first joint general strike in 13 years over the original package. The split this time is procedural rather than substantive: UGT engaged through the final Concertação Social meeting on 7 May and is still betting on the parliamentary-amendment route via the PS-PSD bilateral channel. CGTP closed off that route earlier and is pushing the street-mobilisation pillar. Tiago Oliveira's appeal at the 11 May intervention — for 'convergência de todas as estruturas dos trabalhadores' — failed to move the UGT executive.

The 3 June operational map

The 3 June 2026 date lands on a Wednesday — historically the day with the heaviest commuter and CP-rail volume of the working week, which the CGTP has used in past general strikes to maximise visible impact. The 24-hour window runs from 00:00 to 24:00 and covers public administration, transports, education, health, postal services and the entire private-sector workforce regardless of union affiliation. The serviços mínimos for transports, hospitals and emergency services will be set by the standard arbitragem process that runs in the days before the strike. The CGTP is also coordinating with the European Trade Union Confederation on a parallel solidarity day across Spain, Italy and Greece on the same date.

What it means for Parliament

The strike calendar lands inside the parliamentary debate window for the Trabalho XXI bill — the Conselho de Ministros approval today opens a sixty-day clock during which the Comissão de Trabalho, Segurança Social e Inclusão will run the article-by-article discussion. PSD and CDS-PP need either a PSD-Chega convergência or a partial PSD-PS agreement on selected blocks to pass the package. The 3 June general strike, the parallel UGT-PS-PSD bilateral channel, and the article-by-article parliamentary session will all run in the same window — a configuration that the Montenegro government has not faced on a labour file since taking office.

Sources: Jornal de Negócios; ECO; Público; Observador; RTP; Notícias ao Minuto, 1–13 May 2026.