Murcia's buses and trams are on strike again, and this time the timing couldn't be worse
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Four days of action across the region coincide with the Murcia Fair, with reduced services and a heated row over the Fuensanta Pilgrimage
If you're relying on public transport in the Region of Murcia over the next few days, plan ahead. A four-day transport strike began this Thursday, affecting urban and intercity bus services across the region, including Murcia city, Cartagena, Lorca and beyond, as well as the Murcia tram. The action covers Thursday September 10, Friday September 11, and then resumes on Monday September 14 and Tuesday September 15.
Last-minute talks between the regional employers' association Froet and the three unions involved, CCOO, UGT and USO, collapsed on Wednesday without agreement, leaving passengers to navigate reduced services across what is also one of the busiest periods of the year in Murcia, with the city's Fair in full swing.
Minimum services have been set at 60% during peak hours, which run from 6.30am to 9.00am, 1.00pm to 3.00pm, and 7.00pm to 9.00pm. Outside those windows, services drop to 40%. The same framework applies in Cartagena and across the wider metropolitan area.
Tuesday September 15 is a separate matter entirely. It's the day of the Romería to the Virgen de la Fuensanta, one of the busiest travel days in the Murcia calendar, and the Murcia Ayuntamiento has decreed that 100% of public transport must run. The Ayuntamiento's justification is hard to dismiss: inter-district transport demand triples on the day of the Romería, some lines see a seventeen-fold increase in passengers, and tram demand doubles.
Even so, workers' representatives are furious, arguing the move effectively strips drivers of their right to strike. Francisco Tomás Muñoz Frutos, president of the Monbus works council, has warned that employees may simply refuse to work in Murcia if they feel that right is being denied.
At the heart of the wider dispute is something that sounds deceptively simple: workers want to know in advance when they'll be working and when they'll be resting. "We want to know in advance when we'll be resting and when we'll be working so we can balance work and family life," a union spokesperson said bluntly on Wednesday. "The companies flatly refuse. They don't want workers, they just want slaves."
Froet maintains that agreeing a fixed annual rest schedule at sector level is legally and practically impossible given the nature of public service contracts, and that it should be negotiated company by company. The unions dispute this, noting they've already proposed a three-year transition period to ease implementation. "Our demand is not intransigent," they said. "We have demonstrated at all times a clear willingness to negotiate."
The employers have also raised the financial stakes, warning that if the strike continues, the approximately 700 workers involved could lose a retroactive CPI-linked pay rise covering two years of salary components backdated to January 2026, an improvement they say had already been agreed during negotiations.
Muñoz Frutos summed up where things stand from the workers' side. "We're standing firm and we know exactly what we want. Everything else is agreed, but they are threatening that if we don't give in on this point, the rest of the negotiation could be affected."
A demonstration is taking place this morning, starting at 9.00am in Plaza Santoña in Murcia, outside the Regional Ministry of Infrastructure, before moving along Gran Vía to Glorieta de España.
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If you're relying on public transport in the Region of Murcia over the next few days, plan ahead. A four-day transport strike began this Thursday, affecting urban and intercity bus services across the region, including Murcia city, Cartagena, Lorca and beyond, as well as the Murcia tram. The action covers Thursday September 10, Friday September 11, and then resumes on Monday September 14 and Tuesday September 15.
