Typographers and the beginning of collective contracting in Portugal (II)

Abstract

Being the second and last part of a study on the working relations in the typographic industry in Portugal and the action of typographers fighting for the establishment of collective contracting, the present text focuses the action cycle of trade unions started with the strike in Lisbon newspapers in 1904 and ended at the eve of the dictatorship instauration in May 1926. The social agitation that was coincident and subsequent to the republic as well as the unusual inflationary afflux of 1916-1923 are going to cause a strong claiming and organizing wave among typographers, like among other sectors of the working class. The pioneering conquest of the eight hours of dairy work by the workers in the graphic industry (1915) and the signature of the first durable collective contract (1919) are the most remarkable facts of this period. Then it is drawn, in Portugal, a system of work relations characteristic of modern liberalism - a system that would not have any continuity with the dictatorship.