SITESE Calls a 24-Hour Walkout at APED Member Companies for May 1 — UGT-Affiliated Distribution Union Targets 220 Retailers Including the Sixty Biggest Food Chains, Pre-Strike Notice Already Lodged

The Sindicato dos Trabalhadores do Setor de Serviços (SITESE), the commerce and services union affiliated with the UGT, has lodged a pre-strike notice for a 24-hour walkout on Friday, 1 May 2026 at every company affiliated with the Associação Portuguesa de Empresas de Distribuição (APED). The action runs from 00:00 to 24:00 and targets the entire APED perimeter — 220 member firms on the latest count, of which 60 are food retailers. The remainder spans non-food retail, wholesale and logistics.

What APED Is, and Why That Matters

APED is the trade association that represents the bulk of Portugal's organised distribution. Its food-retail members include the country's three dominant grocery groups — Sonae MC (Continente), Jerónimo Martins (Pingo Doce, Recheio) and Auchan — alongside Lidl Portugal, Aldi, Mercadona, El Corte Inglés and the smaller chains. Outside food, APED groups IKEA Portugal, Leroy Merlin, Decathlon, Worten, Fnac and a long list of specialty retailers. SITESE's notice does not single out individual employers; it formally calls on workers across the entire APED perimeter, leaving each retailer to assess its own exposure.

The Demands

The union lists five core demands in the strike notice, framed as a defence of respeito pelo Dia do Trabalhador — respect for International Workers' Day. The substantive points are:

• A 35-hour week without loss of pay, replacing the current standard 40-hour contracts in retail.
• Rejection of adaptability, hour banking and concentrated schedules — the flexibility instruments employers have leaned on since the 2024 labour-law reforms.
• An end to precarity, with immediate conversion to permanent contracts for any worker filling a permanent role on a temporary basis.
• 25 working days of paid leave with no penalties, in line with the higher leave allowances some collective contracts already provide.
• The unblocking of stalled collective bargaining, with SITESE accusing APED-side employers of running out the clock on negotiations across multiple sub-sectors.

What Tends to Happen on May 1

Distribution-sector strikes on 1 May are an annual feature of the Portuguese labour calendar. Adhesion has historically clustered between 10% and 20% of the targeted workforce, by SITESE's own pre-strike estimates. Service interruption has tended to be residual — supermarkets stay open with reduced staffing — though in recent years individual stores have been forced to shorten hours when adhesion locally clears 30%. APED traditionally responds with a plano de contingência spread across teleworked back-office functions and reinforcement from non-unionised staff.

The novelty this year is the political backdrop. The CGTP-CGTP-IN general strike in late March drew 75–80% adhesion in some judicial-sector groupings (per the SMMP magistrates' walkout reporting), and the SITESE notice is the first major UGT-side action of 2026. A 1 May result above the typical 20% line would mark a noticeable hardening of the union calendar inside the broader UGT bloc.

What to Watch on the Day

The variables that matter for adhesion are: weather (a wet Friday cuts shopper traffic, which cuts staffing pressure and tends to depress adhesion); how many of the 60 food chains pre-position substitute managers; whether any of the non-food APED members — particularly IKEA and Leroy Merlin — issue store-closure notices ahead of the day. ASAE inspections of any store that does close are unlikely. Most of the day's economic impact, if any materialises, will land on the back of the holiday weekend that begins Saturday, 2 May.

Sources: Jornal de Negócios ("Trabalhadores da distribuição convocam greve para o 1.º de Maio"); SITESE pre-strike notice via UGT communications; APED member-firm directory; Notícias ao Minuto on prior-year adhesion estimates; RTP coverage of past 1 May distribution strikes.

See also our coverage of CGTP’s 2 June general strike against the pacote laboral.