There is no truce in the transport strike. The Government and the National Committee for Road Transport (CNTC), in which the majority of the companies in the sector are represented, agreed in the early hours of Friday on reductions in fuel and direct aid valued at more than 1,000 million, but nothing of that is true for the self-employed association known as Platform, which announces that the stoppages will continue “indefinitely”. Asturias is positioned as one of the strongest bastions of the protest. The two employers’ organizations that support the strike called by Platform, IUF and Cesintra, announced yesterday that they will continue with a strike that is putting the Asturian economy on the ropes.
Although the exceptional aid announced by the Government has served to deflate unemployment in much of Spain, in the Principality Cesintra has given a blow. Fenadismer, the parent company of the Cesistra employers’ organization and which has a presence in the CNTC, distanced itself from the strike after the agreement reached with the Executive. However, the Asturian subsidiary decided yesterday “by the vast majority of its partners” to maintain the stoppages. Cesintra, the second most representative employers’ association in the sector in Asturias, gives wings to the Platform protest in the Principality, which is being one of the regions most affected by the strike with blockades in the main industries and affectation throughout the supply chain.
claim fulfilled
After twelve days of protest that have broken the supply chain and put a multitude of Asturian companies on the ropes, the leader of Platform – a “minority” association in the sector, as the Executive has been in charge of pointing out in recent weeks – managed to one of their main demands: to meet with Minister Raquel Sánchez. The meeting between Manuel Hernández and Sánchez was held yesterday afternoon. Upon leaving the appointment at the ministry, the leader of the rebel truckers certified that there is no meeting point: “We cannot pay to work.” The Minister, however, asked the members of Platform to have a “responsibility gesture with society” and resume their activity from next Monday. The head of Transport trusts that the strike will then end. “There are elements that discourage this mobilization from being maintained,” insisted the head of Transport, after stressing that the demands of the Platform are included in the agreement signed on Thursday with the CNTC.
The representative of the Platform in Asturias, José Fernández, president of the IUF, yesterday denied the biggest. The agreement, he assures, does not include the measures that they request: “What is the use of being compensated a few cents per liter of fuel if they do not guarantee that it will not go up in fifteen days?” From this Asturian employers they criticize that the Minister tells them “a film that she negotiated with others and we have told her actively and passively that we need immediate solutions.” Upon leaving the meeting, Hernández also acknowledged that the Minister said “no” to her main demand: “a transitory Decree Law” that guarantees that carriers can cover their costs and prohibits working at a loss until the draft of the Law is presented. Food Chain, scheduled for the end of June. That is why they maintain the strike and call on the Executive to rectify.
The president of Asetra, Ovidio de la Roza, one of the transport heavyweights in Asturias, was one of the architects of the agreement signed at two in the morning on Friday at the Ministry of Transport. Asetra, the majority association of the transport sector in the Principality, has always opposed the strikes, but its president acknowledged on several occasions that the lockout was having more follow-up than expected, even among its own partners. Now, with the aid package signed, he assures that “there are few arguments left to maintain the stoppages, if there ever were any.” The fracture in the sector is total. The self-employed, mostly in favor of the strike, and the large fleet owners have different interests and an opposite perception of the conflict. In the opinion of the businessmen, a good part of the sector is not working because of the most violent pickets.
“minority” mobilization
During the first stages of the strike, several members of the Executive pointed out that it was a “minority” mobilization with an “anecdotal” impact. The blow of reality can be seen in Asturias. Without the trucks of the self-employed and those who support them, the industry slows down, the supply chain is broken and the strike fills the streets and empties supermarket shelves. The will of the Committee and the Ministry of Transport is that, with the aid package, which does not convince small carriers, the protest will deflate to be, now, a minority and anecdotal.
Now the Government and the organizers of the protests will have to measure the forces of the strike after the aid package launched by the Executive. The president of the IUF, José Fernández, recognized as progress that the Minister of Transport agreed to receive the leader of the Platform. “Now you have to negotiate with us,” Fernández said yesterday. Despite receiving the president of Platform, Raquel Sánchez remarked that it was a merely informative meeting. As the Executive has been repeating since the start of the strike, the only body with which it will negotiate is the CNTC, an entity with which the Platform is openly opposed. The strike continues and the Asturian economy waits to see the consequences.
Minister Sánchez agrees to meet with the leader of Platform
After two weeks refusing to receive the members of Platform, whom up to three government ministers described as “ultra-right”, the head of Transport, Ráquel Sánchez, met yesterday afternoon with Manuel Hernández, leader of the mobilization. The president of Platform, in the image, attended the media at the exit of the Ministry to certify that the stoppages continued. Hernández, before going to see Raquel Sánchez, announced that he would demand “apologies” for the workers in the sector.