Labour Statues and Memorials in Portugal

The memorial to the 18 January 1934 glass workers uprising Marinha Grande, Portugal

Contributed by Emília Margarida Marques (CRIA-Iscte / IN2PAST)

On 18 January 1934, as part of a nationwide movement, the glass workers of Marinha Grande took up arms against the new law mandating government control of trade unions, which was introduced by the right-wing dictatorship (1926–1974).

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of this uprising, the Marinha Grande local council, led at the time by a communist majority, decided to build a memorial, unveiled on 18 January 1984. They commissioned the Marinha Grande-born sculptor Joaquim Correia (1920–2013) to design it. According to the local press, the Glass Workers Union covered almost a third of the costs.

By this time, the Portuguese glass industry was in the grip of a deep crisis. Unemployment and delayed wage payments were having a devastating effect. Workers in various industrial sectors across the country were also affected as employers started using delayed wages as a widespread management tool for a variety of purposes. The main Portuguese trade union centre, CGTP-IN, joined the Marinha Grande commemorations and the unveiling of the statue. So the monument was quickly adopted in support of the labour struggles of the time, just as the memory of the uprising itself had long been used for the same purpose. Unsurprisingly, this was fully compatible with the statue also being seen as “a well-deserved tribute to a trade where the labourer and the artist were one and the same!”, as a locally published, conservative newspaper chose to characterise it.

The memorial itself supports both interpretations and actually connects them. It is made up of two parts. One part is a large horizontal block featuring bas-reliefs that depict the labour and production processes of the glass industry in Marinha Grande in the 1930s. It shows some of the stages and operations involved in the production process at the hot and cold ends of a glassworks, as well as some of the social aspects of glassworking, such as the hierarchy within the work team and the use of child labour.

The other part of the monument comprises a vertical block which serves as a pedestal for a statue of an insurgent glassmaker holding a weapon.

Since 1984, the memorial has been included in the annual 18 January uprising celebrations organised by the Glass Workers Union, which always highlight contemporary labour issues and struggles. In 2023, the city council (which is no longer communist-majority) initiated the relocation of the monument from the centre to the side of a roundabout, a move opposed by some veteran glass workers. This controversy once again highlighted the monument's ongoing significance and the diverse memories it represents.