The shellfish gatherers in the Algarve will not have access to the Wage Compensation Fund for Fisheries Professionals or any other state support for the loss of income due to the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, denounced the Union of Fisheries Workers of the South ( STPS).
The syndicalists even accuse the secretary of State for Fisheries, the Algarve José Apolinário, of “relieving themselves of supporting the shellfish collectors, assuming subordination to the European Union”.
At issue is the response given by the Cabinet member of the Government to the union's request to create conditions for seafood professionals to have access to the Salary Compensation Fund. «For this possibility, the situation of many of these professionals being included in Social Security as Fishing Owners was even taken into account».
“However, the answer given by the office of the Secretary of State for Fisheries could not be more evasive. In just one paragraph, the representative of the Government of the Portuguese Republic for fisheries disclaims the possibility proposed by the union, to allow these professionals to access this support, with the justification that the European Commission does not allow”, revealed the STPS.
The union leaders believe that, "in an exceptional period such as the one the country is going through", the response given "reveals a shameful lack of responsibility by professionals in the sector and a declaration of subordination to the European Union that goes to the point where it is used as a justification to make it unfeasible a support that is financed by the sector's own activity”.
This despite the assurance given by José Apolinário's office, in the same answer, that, «considering this extremely difficult phase, with a public health crisis that had never happened, we are working with a view to allowing measures to be taken when reducing of the economic and financial impacts of the epidemiological situation of the new coronavirus».
Because, warns the union, the situation experienced by shellfish collectors is difficult, taking into account that, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, these professionals "saw the demand for shellfish reduced to the point where they ran out of income".
The situation was “worsened by the fact that the possibility of applying for any type of support, not even that created for self-employed workers, was not foreseen”.
«It is time to assume that to overcome the country's economic problems, it is necessary to change the balance of trade in fisheries and seafood (Portugal imports much more fish than that which it exports), which is only possible with measures that defend the fishing sector and its professionals, who for the work they continue to develop daily, deserve to be treated with consideration and respect», concluded the Union of Fisheries Workers of the South.
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