According to the statement sent to members, which Lusa had access to, 2,802 union members participated in the vote, of which 2,305 voted in favour of joining, 320 against, and 177 abstained.

The emergency assembly was convened after the union accused the government of calling what it considers to be "the dismantling of labour guarantees" a "reform," within the framework of the draft revision of the CLT (Consolidation of Labour Laws).

In a statement released last week, the SNPVAC (National Union of Civil Aviation Flight Personnel) argued that the government “is not reforming the Labour Code, it is testing the country,” pointing out that the proposed changes have “enormous repercussions on the aviation sector.”

The union rejected statements by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, who accused the CGTP and UGT trade union confederations and the unions of “political opportunism” for calling a joint general strike.

For the union, such an accusation reveals “a profoundly unfair and disrespectful view of the role of the trade union movement,” while the government “attempts to transform unions into enemies of the economy.”

“There is no modernity when legislation is passed against those who work. And there is no social dialogue when the Government responds to protests with accusations of opportunism,” the union structure stressed in a statement issued on November 19, considering that the Government's draft labour reform “is an unprecedented civilizational setback that is not even aligned with the economies that this Government takes as a reference.”

The CGTP and UGT announced a general strike for December 11 against the Government's proposal, in what will be the first joint strike since June 2013, when Portugal was under the intervention of the 'troika'.