On December 11, the people stepped into the streets. Contrary to what Leitão Amaro would later insist, it was not a marginal disturbance or a symbolic ripple. It was a mass movement—millions of Portuguese women and men asserting their presence across roads, squares, and public spaces throughout the country. Some stayed home, because withdrawal can also be a form of protest. Others gathered in plazas and town commons to raise their voices. And some went to work, because minimum services remained in place and because not everyone chooses the same battlefield. The right not to strike, after all, is also a right.

Portugal did not grind to a halt. In that narrow sense, the minister—now more propagandist than public servant—was correct. But the country moved. It shifted. It leaned forward into a collective statement. What Prime Minister Montenegro wants is not what the people are asking for. The parliamentary minority the PSD now brandishes is no mandate to dismantle rights or to thicken obligations. The electoral minority recently renewed by Spinumviva reflects only a nation fatigued by the inadequacies of the left—not a popular appetite for rollback politics.

Had this program been laid bare in the PPD manifesto and debated honestly during the campaign, Luís Montenegro and Leitão Amaro would likely be warming parliamentary benches rather than drafting what feels increasingly like a slow recipe for democratic erosion.

The so-called “Labor XXI” package—its name a euphemism dressed in futurist clothing—is, in truth, a decisive victory for Portugal’s largest economic groups and a further consolidation of power among billionaires who continue to bankroll the country’s far right. The center-right, in its familiar self-destructive spiral, once again serves the very forces intent on hollowing it out. And yet, a casual walk through the cafés and open courtyards of the island where I live reveals something even more troubling: many people have no clear idea what Spinumviva is actually proposing. So let us be clear about what Montenegro has brought to the table.

Take, for instance, one of the most frequently mentioned—yet least explained—measures: breastfeeding. The right, as ever, shows an almost ritualistic zeal for policing women’s bodies. Mrs. Matias and her husband would likely agree. A few days ago, while waiting nearly two hours at the CTT in Angra do Heroísmo—a small miracle of Portuguese privatization—I overheard a conversation at the bank counter (yes, our postal service has a bank; no one seems to question it anymore).

A broad-shouldered man, speaking with performative certainty, lamented the “shame” of having female colleagues who breastfeed children at two or three years old. The clerk, visibly uncomfortable, nodded along—perhaps wondering what cosmic error had landed her in that exchange on a Monday morning. The man’s words followed, almost verbatim, the talking points of the far right now seeping into Sá Carneiro’s once-unrecognizable party.

Under the new Spinumviva framework, women would be required to present medical certification and would be barred from breastfeeding beyond two years. I will spare readers a lesson in human biology. The prime minister has ministers who should already understand it. What matters is this: this is the first door. Behind it lie renewed attacks on reproductive rights, including voluntary termination of pregnancy, and a broader ambition to regulate women’s bodies—an obsession these political relics have never quite abandoned.

This intention is laid bare in another proposal: the elimination of justified absence for gestational grief. A woman who loses a child in utero would be expected to return to work, tears be damned. Mental health, in this distorted worldview, is a luxury for the weak. Passos Coelho’s old mantra—don’t be soft—still echoes through these corridors.

At the same time, the government sharpens its knives against one of democracy’s most elemental rights: the strike, and the union movements that sustain it. The legal framework governing strikes is being quietly adjusted—not dramatically, not yet—but enough to pry open the windows. One day, what remains will be easier to steal. Unions see their scope narrowed. Employment contracts—fixed-term and permanent alike—are set to become more precarious, tilting power further toward employers and away from those with the least protection. Liberals smile. Sá Carneiro, were he alive, would not recognize this party.

Dismissals grow easier. Schedules harden. “Alternative” employment arrangements multiply. Professional dignity erodes. The list is long, and others have catalogued it more exhaustively. Here, I have simply tried to sketch the intent of this well-tailored gang.

The general strike was a rejection of all this. And despite what Leitão Amaro and Montenegro would have us believe, it was neither marginal nor symbolic. It was loud. It was visible. It mattered.

Still, it will not be enough on its own. This is a minority government with outsized muscle, buoyed by the absence of meaningful resistance. Despite flashes of strength from parts of the left—particularly in presidential contests—Parliament continues its drift toward the far right. Montenegro knows this package speaks directly to the new patrons of money and authoritarian nostalgia. Hence Amaro’s dismissive refrain: nothing is happening. Walk all you want—the people do not rule here.

This contempt is not new. During the General Strike of March 1988, Prime Minister Cavaco Silva famously told the press, “If there was a strike, I didn’t notice it. If it was general, even less so. At most, it was very, very partial.”

And yet, if any doubt lingered about the strike’s impact, one need only watch André Ventura reverse course—first backing the draft proposal, then hastily revising his script when the ground shifted beneath him.

“Labor XXI” is headed to Parliament. That much is clear. What remains uncertain is whether genuine, effective opposition will emerge. Ventura, the habitual opportunist, voiced support for the strike but will almost certainly vote in favor, perhaps adorned with a handful of cosmetic amendments. The numbers suggest the package will pass.

Portugal will be poorer for it, governed by a coalition incapable of commanding even the confidence of its own voters. To those reading this, regardless of political allegiance: this moment belongs to you. Pressure your representatives. Speak locally so voices carry nationally. This is how citizenship asserts itself—just as others did before us, so that we might stand here now. Mobilize bodies. Raise voices. This legislative package must not pass.

Alexandra Manes is from Flores Island but lives on Terceira Island in the Azores. She is a regular contributor to several Azorean newspapers, a political and cultural activist, and has served in the Azorean Parliament.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with a sense of the significant perspectives on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL).