The workers of the Portuguese airline company TAP, including pilots and cabin crew have agreed to strike between March 21 and 23 to protest against wage cuts.

The Union of Civil Aviation Pilots – SPAC – was the first to decide on striking and the remaining six airport workers’ unions decided to join them.

In the meanwhile, TAP workers protested on Monday in Largo de Camoes in Lisbon against governmental policies and carried a three-metre-wide plane ticket replica on which the name of Alvaro Santos Pereira was inscribed – the Minister for the Economy – in a not-so-thinly-veiled suggestion that he should be taking a one-way trip back to Canada, country in which he lived before being a Portuguese minister.

He is accused by the TAP workers of being responsible for the current situation of the company, which has lost some of its most qualified personnel in search of better career opportunities.

According to the union, this departure of qualified personnel will jeopardize the company in both the short and medium term by compromising passenger safety as well as the Portuguese airline’s reputation and image.

The three-day strike the week before Easter was unanimously approved at a general meeting that was held on March 1.

This has been the aftermath that followed February’s wage cuts – anywhere between 3.5% and 10% on gross salaries above 1,500 Euro per month – so as to fall in line with the Portuguese budget criteria set for 2013.

The President of TAP made an appeal for ‘common sense’ among workers because a strike at this moment will not be beneficial for the Portuguese airline’s image however, what it has to be done to send a message.

The new, reduced, charges will apply to all users, with transport companies benefitting from an extra ten percent reduction during the day and a twenty-five percent reduction during night time.

The roads that are covered by the new tolls are the A17 and A29 – Silver Coast, the A4, A41 and A42 – Greater Porto, the A28 – Norte Litoral, the A22 – Algarve, the A23 – Beira Interior, the A24 – Interior Norte and the A25 – Beira Litoral/Alta.

The former toll regime, allowed local residents and workers to benefit from ten free trips each month, however that was deemed illegal by the virtue of it being discriminatory by the European Commission, so the Government had to abandon it. That opinion was also echoed by the several major figures of the Algarve tourist market.

Going back to the European Commission decision, it argued that the old system of tolls was in violation of the right of free movement of people as well as the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of residence.

The updated regime is in accordance with EU legislation and in a statement from the Portuguese Minister of Economy, he said that the new regime won’t impact the State Budget and that it also respects the government’s user-payer principle for all the motorways in the country.

But the general feeling in the Algarve business sector on the whole isn’t as calm as the Minister’s conclusion sounds, instead they are expecting more bankruptcies, higher unemployment rates, less tourists from Spain, decreases in the Algarve car rental industry numbers and a more congested EN125 if the tolls remain active.

New protests are against the Algarve tolls are scheduled to take place in the near future.