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The Portuguese union, SNTCT, has held a forum in Lisbon on the proposed privatisation of CTT Correios. Speakers and union members at the forum denounced the governments plans to privatise the currently State owned postal operator CTT Correios. The sole voice at the forum in favour of the privatisation and also in favour of the European initiative to liberalise the postal service, was Vitor Baptista, Member of Parliament for the Socialist Party. Other Members of Parliament, representing the political groups, BE and PCP opposed the idea of privatising post. Portuguese union representatives and other speakers such as the Portuguese federation for SME's and the Movement for Public Services, condemned the proposal as a bad idea and joined SNTCT's call for the privatisation to be scrapped.



Neil Anderson, Head of UNI Post & Logistics Global Union, also speaking at the forum, said that UNi did not support the proposal and that in all cases where there had been privatisation, UNI had found the quality of service did not get better, customers lost services and workers lost their jobs. He supported the SNTCT theme for the Forum, which was "Why and for what purpose?". All the speakers gave examples of where privatisation had not been in the best interests of consumers, governments or citizens, but had only been for short term gain.



Mr Baptista however seemed to be convinced that Portugal would be able to dig it's way out of it's deficit problems created by the financial crisis by gaining cash from selling off a big stake of the Portuguese Post. He said that he saw no reason why there should not be a part privatisation and that he supported the liberalisation of the postal market in Europe. Clearly no one else at the Forum agreed with his view. SNTCT General Secretary, Victor Narciso, told Mr Baptista that CTT Correios was making a profit and it would be better if the Government used those profits to reduce the deficit and to invest in making the post stronger and providing a better public service. He said the government would be better off putting in place better management in CTT and developing the services such as a postal bank so that the company could be more profitable and citizens could gain from a more efficient and diverse postal service.



SNTCT vowed to keep fighting the privatisation and unveiled their symbol against the privatisation, a large shark attacking a post box!