Lisbon, Sept. 9, 2025 (Lusa) - The Portuguese road and urban transport workers' union (Strup) points to the outsourcing of maintenance services and the subsequent breakdown in the transfer of knowledge as indirect factors in the fatal accident in Lisbon's Glória funicular.
A bus electrician for the city bus company, Carris, and already a trade unionist at the time, the current national leader of Strup, Manuel Leal, highlights the “breakdown in the transmission of knowledge from older to younger workers” as the most serious factor in the outsourcing of maintenance services, and believes that this “should shape the work” of the investigation into last Wednesday's accident at the Glória funicular, which left 16 people dead and several injured.
This is because, while "the excellence of the work done by Carris workshop employees doesn't pose any problems" when it comes to repairing buses and trams, "given the technological innovations these vehicles have and the professional training facilities", this is not the case with the funicular and the city's other lifts, which "take on a completely different character", he says.
These are "vehicles that are over 100 years old", for which "there is no replacement material on the market", notes the technician, recalling that previously "all the spare parts were built in Carris' own workshops".
In this context, the "transmission of oral knowledge from the older workers to the younger workers is of enormous importance," he says, emphasising that the commission of inquiry should investigate "the responsibilities of those who decided on this break 20 years ago" and whether this "is not also one of the indirect factors’ behind last week's accident on the Glória funicular.
Furthermore, he adds, if maintenance services were guaranteed by Carris workers, "the company would not be subject to the variation of the end of contracts and hiring processes".
Before taking the decision to outsource maintenance services - including those relating to the Bica, Glória and Lavra lifts and the Santa Justa lift in Lisbon - "there was no negotiation of any kind with the trade union organisations" on the part of Carris management, recalls the national leader of Fectrans (Federation of Transport and Communications Unions), classifying the process as an "attempt to destroy the workshop sector" of the company.
"What happened was an imposition to put the workers against the wall so that they could terminate their contracts," he says, counting the departure of more than 300 workshop technicians in 2006/2007.
Manuel Leal recalls that the company's management announced that it would begin switching, in January 2007, to a company with capital held by Carris, CarrisBus, founded in 2005.
Some of the workers accepted the transfer, "with the loss of the rights enshrined in the company labour agreement", he recalls, adding that, "at the same time, a process of hiring outside workers followed, without any of the rights also enshrined in the company agreement and only with the established salaries".
In order to retrieve the background to the decision to outsource the maintenance of services, which Strup attributes exclusively to the Carris management and has no political indication, Lusa contacted the chairman of the company at the time, economist José Silva Rodrigues, who led the board of directors between 2003 and 2013, but he declined to make a statement.
Having consulted the 2007 Annual Report, it can be read that Carris continued with "the development of the strategic orientation of outsourcing maintenance, aiming for greater effectiveness and efficiency reflected in the reliability of the fleet and the reduction of operating costs related to vehicle maintenance".
In the audit carried out on the company in 2009, the Court of Auditors cites operating costs of €158.2 million in 2007, a decrease of more than €10 million compared to 2006, while at the same time noting an increase in the cost of external supplies and services of €4.2 million, "derived from the decision to outsource maintenance operations".
In 2007, Carris didn't publish its overall loss for the year, but only for the first half: €41.6 million, down €10.3 million compared to the same period the previous year.
The following year, Carris recorded a loss of €17.3 million, a reduction of €22 million compared to 2007, accompanied by positive operating results of €2.2 million.
SBR/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
