1.
GV ZOOM IN Demonstrators along street and on lorry (3 shots)
0.24

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MV Demonstrators holding banners as they march along street (2 shots)
0.42

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SV & PAN General Assembly building and demonstrators outside
0.51

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SV CU ZOOM OUT TO Demonstrators with banners
1.00

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GV Demonstrators chanting outside General Assembly building
1.10



Initials BB/0230 TA/JB/BB/0250



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Thousands of angry building workers held about 150 deputies of Portugal's Constituent Assembly prisoner in Lisbon's Government Palace on Wednesday (12 November) night.

The workers used the siege to try to persuade the government to grant their recent pay claim. They only allowed the deputies to leave on Thursday (13 November) after they had been trapped in the building for 18 hours, and they warned of new forms of struggle if their demands were not met.

The workers also brought a lorry with which they blocked the entrance to Prime Minister Admiral Pinheiro de Azevedo's residence adjoining the Palace.

The workers were on the third day of a national strike which has paralysed the construction industry.

The government has declared that the increase the building workers want would cost an estimated 12,000 million escudos (about 200 million sterling) which they say they do not have during the country's current economic woes. The workers claim their minimum wage of 80 pounds sterling a month is a "starvation" rate.

Earlier about 20,000 of the builders had marched through the centre of Lisbon to the Palace chanting "Down with exploitation and starvation wages".