⛔🚚 Spanish truckers threaten new strike
Drivers say the goverment is not keeping its side of the bargain and that new maximum weight measures would increase road dangers for all.
🚨 What happened?
The national leaders of the independent truckers’ organisation that caused logistics chaos across Spain in March, Plataforma Nacional, have voted “unanimously” in favour of putting the brakes on haulage activity again. The proposal will now be put to regional members votes on Saturday.
💥What is at stake?
During the nationwide stoppage in March, which the government tried hard to brush off as a few self-employed truckers, businsess leaders in agriculture, transport and distribution estimated €600 million in losses and 100,000 jobs in at risk. The chairman of Spanish business leaders’ assocication CEOE said in the spring: “we can’t allow the country to come to a standstill”. Car factories stopped production and there were serious problems in the fresh produce sector.
🗨️ The key quote
“Which is why we say at this time that we cannot allow all these events to continue and that delegates have therefore decided unanimously to call a national indefinite stoppage” — (Plataforma Nacional statement, Oct. 31, 2022)
⏰ Now what..?
Grassroots members will vote on whether or not to back the national delegates’ call to restart the national stoppage across Spain at 14 regional meetings around the country at 5 p.m. on Saturday, November 5. Organisers are calling for “maximum attendance” at the weekend votes “becuase of the gravity of the situation”.
⚔️👿 What do truckers want?
The truckers began negotiations with the government in April and a previous proposal to strike again was rejected by members at the end of June. Now they say the Transport Ministry is not keeping its part of the bargain.
“The right actions to check and fine, where needed for irregularities, are not being carried out”
They accuse the Transport Inspection Directorate of “lightening any pressure on rule breakers”
They say that two months after agreeing drivers should not be loading their trucks: “we are already starting to see cases of reprisals against drivers who don’t give in to the coercion to keep unloading their lorries”
The truckers say the ministry has replied there aren’t enough inspectors
Drivers warn of danger on the roads if the government pushes through a new maximum weight for trucks: adding four tonnes to each lorry’s load, “would save loading companies one truck out of every six”
They are against new regional tolls on roads “when we can’t even cover the real costs as it is”
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