Lisbon (AFP) - Widespread disruption hit Portuguese air travel and trains, hospitals and schools on Thursday as the unions called the biggest nationwide strike action for more than a decade against government labour reforms.

A government spokesman insisted that “the vast majority” of Portuguese people were at work and likened the walk-out to “a partial strike in certain areas of the public sector”.

But unions maintained that more than three million people took part in the walk-out – more than half of the country’s total working population of 5.5 million.

Underground metro stations in the capital, Lisbon, were shut while ferries and trains ran a skeleton service, with departure boards overwhelmingly announcing cancellations.

“I got up at four o’clock to go to work but I’m stuck because I’ve still not managed to get a train,” 20-year-old Nairene de Melo, a hotel employee, told AFP at one station linking the city centre with its southern and western suburbs.

Shops, cafes and restaurants were open but with fewer customers than usual, and it was calmer, too, at airports, after national carrier TAP Air Portugal cancelled more than 200 flights.

Portugal’s largest car factory – a Volkswagen group plant located in the southern Setubal region – ground to a halt.

The national doctors’ union and the main teaching union said most of their members went on strike, bringing dozens of hospital departments handling non-urgent cases to a standstill and shutting schools.

- ‘Attack’ on work -

Unions have been infuriated by a draft law proposed by the right-wing minority government that it says aims to simplify firing procedures, extend the length of fixed-term contracts and expand the minimum services required during a strike.

Prime Minister Luis Montenegro insisted that the labour reforms, with more than 100 measures, were intended to “stimulate economic growth and pay better salaries”.

But the communist-leaning CGTP and more moderate UGT unions have lambasted the plans, resulting in Portugal’s biggest walk-out since June 2013, when the country needed International Monetary Fund and European Union help to overcome a debt crisis.

CGTP secretary general Tiago Oliveira told AFP the reforms were “among the biggest attacks on the world of work”.

Around 1.3 million are already in insecure positions, he added.

Protests took place in about 20 cities across Portugal on Thursday afternoon, while several thousand people marched through Lisbon to parliament, shouting “No to the labour code reform!”, “A brutal attack!” and “We won’t back down!”

“If this reform is approved, we will plunge into an economic crisis,” said Vanessa Oliveira, a 47-year-old history teacher. “Workers will no longer be protected.”

- Support for strikers -

With Portugal set to elect a new president in early 2026, Oliveira the union leader said he considered the strike was “already a success” even before it started, as it had drawn public attention to the labour reforms.

Public opinion is largely behind the strikers, with 61 percent of those polled in favour, according to a survey published in the Portuguese press.

Although Montenegro’s party lacks a majority in parliament, his government should be able to force the bill through with the support of the liberals and the far right, which has become the second-largest political force in Portugal.

The left-wing opposition has accused Montenegro’s camp of not telling voters that workers’ rights roll-backs were on the cards while campaigning for the last parliamentary elections.

Although Portugal has recorded economic growth of around two percent and a historically low unemployment rate of some six percent, the prime minister has argued that the country should take advantage of the favourable climate to push through reforms.

Armindo Monteiro, head of the main employers’ confederation, the CIP, condemned the strike and told AFP the government’s draft law was only a “basis for discussion” aiming to correct the “misbalance” caused by labour changes made by a previous left-wing government.