Portugal’s largest labour union has called a general anti-government strike for June 27 to protest against public sector pay cuts, layoffs and other austerity measures imposed to meet EU/IMF bailout terms.

The industrial action is meant to promote change of policy

The strike will encompass workers in the country’s public and private sectors, CGTP chief Armenio Carlos told reporters yesterday, adding that all other unions were welcome to join the Union’s directives.

“It is a strike for everyone, it is a strike to promote change of policy, of the government and to call for early elections,” he said.

Previous stoppages since Portugal’s mid-2011 bailout, including a general strike in November, have had little impact on the government’s stance.

But strife has intensified lately since April’s rejection by the Constitutional Court of some austerity measures that forced the government to come up with alternative spending cuts and other unpopular steps like raising the retirement age.

The country’s other big umbrella union, the UGT, has said it is likely to join the strike. It holds a strategy meeting next week. CGTP groups about 750,000 workers and UGT some 500,000 others.

The centre-right government imposed the largest tax hikes in living memory from the start of the year and in early May announced €4.8 billion in savings until 2015, including a redundancy programme in the public sector.

In an amended budget, the government yesterday reaffirmed its recently-eased deficit target of 5.5 per cent of gross domestic product for this year.

Next year’s deficit target is four per cent. The government is expecting the economy to shrink 2.3 per cent in 2013, after last year’s 3.2 per cent slump, with the country expected to return to meagre growth next year.

A group known as “Screw the Troika”, in reference to Portugal’s three lenders from the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF, has also planned anti-austerity rallies for today.

Teachers’ unions have also promised to start a series of strikes next month, between June 7 and 17 during the national exams at schools.

Meanwhile in a flash of good news, bankers said on Thursday that after three years of the worst recession since the 1970s, credit is finally flowing back into the Portuguese economy. However, they insisted that more must be done to stimulate growth in the bailed-out country.