Portugal and Mozambique agree to do more to combat illegal labour networks

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Portugal and Mozambique agree to do more to combat illegal labour networks

7:12 CAT | 12 Sep 2023

Photo: Twitter / @trabalho_pt

The Portuguese and Mozambican governments recognized in Lisbon this Monday the need to develop efforts to guarantee the “full rights” of workers in both countries and to “do more” to “combat illegal networks or vulnerable situations”.

In statements accompanying the signing of a bilateral memorandum on worker mobility this Monday in Lisbon at the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security of Portugal by the Portuguese holder of the portfolio, Ana Mendes Godinho and her Mozambican counterpart, Margarida AdamugiyTalapa, Mendes Godinho highlighted the importance of “more” being done “to combat illegal networks or situations of vulnerability of workers who are often left in unacceptable conditions of dependence”.

The agreement aims to ensure that “there is a greater connection and rapprochement between the needs of Portuguese companies and the mobility of Mozambican workers, ensuring that people come in a framed manner and [are] safeguarded in all their rights, thus also seeking to promote real integration of workers in Portugal,” Ana Mendes Godinho highlighted.

🤝 Assinado pela Ministra Ana Mendes Godinho, e pela Ministra do Trabalho e da Segurança Social de Moçambique, Margarida Adamugy Talapa, reforça a #cooperação entre os 2 países nas relações laborais e condições de #trabalho.#MTSSS #XXIIIGoverno #Moçambique pic.twitter.com/j7fkf1CKE0

— Trabalho, Solidariedade e Segurança Social (@trabalho_pt) September 12, 2023

Likewise, Margarida Adamugy Talapa stressed that the memorandum is “yet another instrument for strengthening labour protection for Mozambican workers in Portugal”, which “will make it possible to understand the terms and conditions under which they are contracted, as well as to monitor the exercise of their labour activity”.

The agreement is framed by the social security agreement that exists between the two countries, which, according to the Portuguese minister, “guarantees” that workers, whether Mozambican or Portuguese, “always have their contributory careers safeguarded”, regardless of the country where they work.

The implementation of the agreement involves the joint work of the countries’ employment and vocational training institutes, while the governments of Lisbon and Maputo are left with the “struggle”, in the words of the Mozambican minister, to ensure that “employers promote and respect human and labour rights”

To this end, explained Ana Mendes Godinho, “a pivot” will be created with the Portuguese Authority for Working Conditions, “always available to flag up” “any unacceptable, inadmissible situation in which workers’ labour rights are not respected”, announced Mendes Godinho.

Asked by Lusa to identify the “pivot”, the minister guaranteed that it would be the Authority’s Inspector General who would be responsible for “intervening immediately so that companies that are flagged, that have a situation of this nature, immediately [stop] being part of this mobility and this process of identifying workers to work in Portugal”.

“Here too, we must be ruthless in relation to companies in which situations of this nature are detected,” Mendes Godinho emphasised.

“To this end, what we agreed was to have a great coordination here so that the embassy [of Mozambique in Lisbon], whenever it becomes aware of any situation of this nature, immediately communicates it to this pivot of the Authority for Working Conditions so that there is immediate reaction,” she added.

The document “confirms”, in a “specific” bilateral agreement, the “principles that were assumed within the scope of the mobility agreement signed by the CPLP countries”, the Portuguese minister highlighted.

The two leaders also signed a memorandum in the field of cooperation, “with a view to preparing the next action program”, in which Portugal assumes “a reinforcement of investment in training in Mozambique, believing that true cooperation is also achieved through training and valuing of Mozambican workers”, Godinho said.

“From now on, we have made this commitment to reinforce the training carried out and the investment made in training in Mozambique by Portugal, as the Minister also considered this to be an important critical area for her country,” Godinho declared.

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