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Date Published: 28/03/2022

ARCHIVED - Transport sector refuses second government deal and Spanish national strike continues

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

Drivers in Spain claim they ‘can’t afford’ to go back to work without additional measures being guaranteed by the government

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Transport sector refuses second government deal and Spanish national strike continues

It’s now two full weeks since the transport sector in Spain called a national strike, and a resolution doesn’t seem likely anytime soon. The Spanish government gave in before the weekend and agreed to meet with the organisers of the industrial action, the Platform for the Defence of the National and International Road Freight Transport Sector, after repeatedly refusing a sit-down with the group, claiming that they are not valid interlocutors.

However, even though a meeting was eventually conducted on Friday March 25 amid growing concerns of supply shortages across the country, no agreement was reached and the strike is set to continue indefinitely.

"We have no choice but to continue in the situation we were in,” the president of the platform, Manuel Hernández, said after the meeting, adding that the Minister of Transport insisted that the government would need “two or three months” to develop and approve a decree law to change their situation.

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Last week, the government and the National Committee for Road Transport brokered a deal that involves reducing professional diesel costs by 20 cents per litre, among other measures, and the Minister urged truckers to return to the roads on the back of this. However, the platform has countered that its drivers need some kind of “temporary measures” in the meantime so that there is a guarantee that if they go back to work, they won’t lose money.

According to Mr Hernández: “The money that [the government] is going to give us if we start on Monday is not going to cover the costs. We cannot call off the strike.”

Responding to comments made by the Minister on March 17 linking the transport protests with “ultra-right groups” and her insistence that she had no intention of meeting with “a group of violent radicals,” Ms Sanchez asked the platform for “forgiveness” at Friday’s meeting, claiming that her words had simply been misunderstood.

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Image: Social Drive

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