The memorandum of understanding signed with the Troika, in May 2011, amidst the eurozone debt crisis, relied on a combination of austerity policies and an internal devaluation strategy that produced severe and long-lasting effects on the Portuguese economy. These effects range from the depletion of the capital stock to the erosion of trade union bargaining power, the increase of labor market vulnerabilities, the deepening of inequalities, an overspecialization on low-skill and low-wage activities, such as tourism, or the degradation of public services. Despite a trajectory of economic recovery, since 2014 and until the Covid-19 pandemic, continuing in the current context, the austerity policies were only partially reversed - ‘core measures’ of labour market deregulation, such as dismissal procedures and collective bargaining decentralization, persisted. By focusing on the Portuguese case, this presentation attempts to address the debate on the crucial role of arenas of decision-making (social concertation versus national parliament, and the EU versus the national level) in ongoing processes of reconfiguration of the wage relation. The main hypothesis underlying this presentation is that the social concertation arena and the support of EU institutions are very important in reversing ‘corollary measures’, such as those on temporary employment and minimum wages, aiming to protect nonstandard workers on the labour market, but this was often done at the expense of decreasing levels of regulation for the ‘industrial core’ workers, much in line with an orientation towards export-led growth. In synthesis, it was under this complex socioeconomic fabric and politics that the impact of those multiple and successive crises, since the Global Financial crisis, has to be appraised.

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labour market deregulation,polycrises,internal devaluation,Portugal

• Economics and Business - Social Sciences
• Sociology - Social Sciences