River connections between Lisbon and Margem Sul with constraints due to strike – Observer
River connections between Lisbon and Margem Sul are being restricted from Monday to August 19, affecting peak hours, due to a partial strike by the Transtejo worker.
According to the Federation of Transport and Communications Unions (Fectrans), a stoppage affects connections between Lisbon and Cacilhas (municipality of Almada), Seixal, Montijo and Trafaria (Almada)in the district of Setúbal, and constitutes “a fight for the best and services”.
“From the 8th of August and until the 19th of the month, workers will go on partial strikes on the service shift, due to the fact that they do not start a process of effective administration/government, in order to implement even in agreement with unions, which in addition to the public salary appreciation, there is the improvement of the service”, explains the federation in a statement published on its internet.
According to the union structure, on days the company’s management all public notices of partial career struggle “due to technical constraints in the fleet of workers”, ensures a situation that Fectrans assures will worsen in the coming days due to the company’s workers.
“Resolving problems in this and other public sectors is a political choice between investment companies for workers and workers and fixing them, or choosing to respond to the demands of economic workers and the public service”, consider.
Fectrans argues that “there is only a labor conflict because the administration/Government opts for silence and for ignoring the protests of workers and users”.
The company, for its part, published information on the service disruptions on 12 August caused by the partial strike and an overtime strike called by workers’ organizations on its website.
In the notices, the carrier gives an indication of the routes scheduled for each of the connections between the two banks, that is, between Lisbon and Cacilhas, Seixal, Montijo and Trafaria.
With regard to the connection between Cacilhas and Lisbon (Cais do Sodré), Transtejo stated that, with the objective of minimizing the trip of cancellations and delays of lines, the ships start as soon as the maximum capacity of embarked passengers is reached, regardless of of the scheduled time.
In turn, not with regard to the connections between Cais do Sodré and Seixal and Montijo, the company explains that the realization, or not, of careers is dependent on joining the strike.
During downtime, the terminals are closed for security reasons.
Service disruptions for August 16-19 will be announced over the next week. The same happens with the connection between Trafaria/Porto Brandão (Almada) and Belém (Lisbon).
Transtejo is responsible for connecting Seixal, Montijo, Cacilhas and Trafaria/Porto Brandão, while Soflusa makes the crossing between Barreiro and Terreiro do Paço, in Lisbon, which is a single connection with no foreseen restrictions.
In the first six months of the year, Lisboners faced more than a month of transport strikes