CDU broke rocks to convince the undecided (and say they want to fight for small and medium-sized companies)
The work is hard, noisy and repetitive, but João Oliveira makes himself heard there. Step by step, worker by worker, they exchange greetings and a few quick words, before leaving leaflets. At each stage, the granite blocks become smaller, they crack into smaller and smaller stones until they are parallel to the sidewalk. And along the way, the communist hopes that some votes will be found.
At M. Barbosa Granitos Lda., in Penafiel, 250 people worked. Today there are around 20 left. “Many people retired, others left, but the majority emigrated to have a better quality of life and wages.â€explains Vitorino Pereira, who inherited the family business founded by his father in 1978. Many have gone to Sweden and Norway, but even those who arrive no longer want this sector. “There are fewer people showing up to work in this field. So I can get two men here, someone [nas pedreiras ali perto, muitas na mesma estrada] will be without them.â€
But the difficulties are deeper and the “business is falling†with the expectation that this year it will earn less than half. “We are working towards stock, but we have reached a point that is difficult to bear.â€
In the last half year “we hardly had any orders,†says the businessman. And if the domestic market “helps a lot†, the situation abroad has become more complicated. “From what we are investigating, Turkey has been one of our biggest competitors. And Polandwith the border with Germany [um dos principais cliente].â
And if Vitorino Pereira is already used to the failures that he says occur more or less every ten years, he attributes a cause to them. “I say it must be war, because during the pandemic it happened very well.â€
All of this cocktail of problems attracts the CDU, but the coalition enters the tenth day of the campaign playing in the environment that is most natural to it. “Quarry workers are well aware of the importance of the CDU and the importance of the CDU in the decisions that interest them.â€, said the candidate (even when during the visit one of the bricklayers wanted to make it clear, writing on the stone, that he voted BE). And remember: if for 15 years, these workers fought for access to early retirement, it was their struggle and the intervention of the CDU that made it possible to make it a reality.
“Those who are still undecided today should think about whether to vote on June 9th. If they recognize the CDU as a force that they need and with a decisive intervention to solve their problems, that there is no vote left for the CDU on the 9th, he appeals.
But for the candidate, achieving early retirement also shows that he is possible to fight, even against “guidelines as strong and powerful as those coming from the EU†. And it is these battles that he wants to fight in the European Parliament. For workers, but also for companies.
In the quarry, consider being in front of the “consequences of the deindustrialization of our countryâ€, against which you have spoken so often throughout this campaign. But it also points out the effects of “subjection to competitive conditions that are unfavorable to us†which “leads companies to reduce their activity or even close downâ€.
“There needs to be someone in the European Parliament who can say that only by valuing work, wages, professions and careers is it possible to have workers who can truly contribute to what the country needs,†he states.
Whether you are convinced or not, the calculations will only be made on Sunday. Here, Vitorino Pereira believes that the European Union “must encourage and collaborate with companies to develop†to create jobs and prevent young people from fleeing.
But is João Oliveira the solution? “I don’t know anything. I simply opened the door to the CDU as I open it to anyone. I don’t have a party and I’m not here to communicate.” He only has one conviction: “The most important thing is for politicians to have a sense of reality. We just have to make ourselves known, the rest can be worked on.â€
