Uber Opens a Collective Dismissal in Portugal, Where Most of Its 650 Staff Work at a Lisbon Support Centre

Uber has started a collective dismissal in Portugal, the company confirmed to ECO on Friday 6 November and to Público on Saturday. It has not said how many jobs will go, or in which teams.

Uber employs about 650 people in Portugal, according to both outlets. Most work at its Centre of Excellence for Europe in Lisbon, which gives multilingual support to riders, drivers and restaurants using Uber and Uber Eats across several European markets, Público reports. The drivers who use the app are self-employed and are not on Uber's staff, so they are not part of the process.

What Uber has said

• The cuts follow a plan announced worldwide in September, when the chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, told staff Uber would cut about 10 percent of its workforce. Público puts that at roughly 3,300 people.
• In that message, according to ECO, he said the aim was to make Uber "simpler and faster", removing management layers and reinvesting the savings in growth and innovation.
• Uber did not blame the cuts directly on artificial intelligence, Público notes, presenting them instead as a reorganisation.
• The workers affected in Portugal have already been told of the company's intention and are now choosing how they will be represented in the negotiations, Uber told Público.

The Lisbon centre has been through this before. Uber announced it in October 2017, planning about 250 jobs by 2018. In June 2020, during the pandemic, it cut 30 percent of the centre's roughly 500 staff. About two years later the company was calling it its largest centre in Europe, with more than 500 direct jobs, Público recalls.

How a collective dismissal works in Portugal

The steps are set by the Código do Trabalho (Labour Code), articles 359 to 366.

• What counts: in a medium or large company, ending the contracts of at least five workers within three months, for market, structural or technological reasons.
• The first letter: the employer must set out in writing its reasons, the staff list by department, how it will choose who goes, how many and which job categories, the timetable, and how compensation will be calculated. It goes to the workers' committee or the unions. Where there are none, it goes to each worker who may be affected, and they have five working days to elect a committee of up to three or five people from among themselves. A copy goes to the Direção-Geral do Emprego e das Relações de Trabalho (DGERT, the Directorate-General for Employment and Labour Relations).
• Negotiation: within five days, the employer must open talks with the workers' representatives on the size of the cut and alternatives such as suspending contracts, shorter hours, retraining, or early retirement. DGERT takes part. Each side may bring an expert, and minutes must be kept.
• The decision: once there is an agreement, or 15 days after the first letter, the employer sends each worker a written decision giving the reason, the end date and the compensation.

Notice and compensation

• Minimum notice: 15 days for less than a year's service, 30 days for one to five years, 60 days for five to ten years, and 75 days for ten years or more. If both members of a couple are dismissed, each gets the next band up.
• Time to look for work: during the notice period, a worker may take the equivalent of two working days a week off on full pay.
• Leaving early: a worker can leave during the notice period, for example to start a new job, by giving three working days' notice, and still keeps the compensation.
• Compensation: 14 days of base pay and seniority payments for each full year of service, prorated for part of a year. Monthly pay above 20 times the national minimum wage is not counted, and the total is capped at 12 months' pay (or 240 times the minimum wage for the highest earners).
• When it is paid: by the end of the notice period, together with any other money owed.
• If you want to challenge it: the law presumes that a worker who accepts the full compensation accepts the dismissal. To keep the right to dispute it, the worker must hand the whole amount back, or place it at the employer's disposal, at the same time. Get advice from a lawyer or your union before accepting.

Collective dismissals have been rising this year. Employers notified 479 of them in the first nine months, 15.7 percent more than a year earlier, although fewer workers were affected, according to DGERT figures we reported in October. Temporary lay-off, a different scheme that suspends contracts or cuts hours instead of ending them, covered fewer than 4,000 workers in September.