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The sector mobilizes against the increase in fuel prices and their “inadmissible” working conditions
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The majority employers do not support the strike because they consider that it is not the time
Professionals in the transport sector are called to stop their activity indefinitely from this Monday at midnight. The objective of the entity that has organized the mobilization, the Platform for the Defense of the Freight Transport Sector, is to vindicate the “very serious” situation that the sector is experiencing in the face of the runaway rise in oil prices and the “unacceptable” working conditions of its workers. However, the strike does not have the support of the large employers in the sector, which, although they agree on the reading, argue that this is not the time to further complicate the situation in the industry, which is still dragging the effects of the pandemic and which is in full storm because of the war in Ukraine.
Despite this, according to the Efe agency, the convening platform has sent a long list of demands to the Ministries of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Labor and Social Economy. Among them, the prohibition of hiring road freight transport services below operating costs. The administration – this association regrets – “continues to negotiate with the shippers (who are the members of the National Transportation Committeethe CNTC) instead of answering the SOS calls of the real protagonists of the sector”, who are, he says, the truck drivers on foot.
Instead, the Spanish Confederation of Freight Transport (CETM), the majority, with 65,000 companies and 260,000 vehicles (80% of the Spanish fleet), considers that this is not the time to strike. In fact, this entity has actively spoken out against the messages that on social networks warn of possible shortages due to the effect of the strike.
In this sense, CETM has asked the Government to reinforce the actions of the security forces to avoid problems on the roads as of Monday. Sources from the Ministry of the Interior have assured Efe that the security forces will effectively carry out the necessary operation to guarantee normality on the roads.
For its part, the state employer Fenadismer and the Guild of Transport and Logistics of Catalonia (which is part of the first) have chosen an intermediate option: openly deny support for the strike, but ask for respect for those professionals who decide to follow it. Fenadismer points out that the daily increase in fuel prices has become unsustainable, and that it currently represents more than 50% of the operating costs of the activity.
Negotiation
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Faced with this situation, what the National Committee for Road Transport (CNTC) is demanding is an “urgent and immediate meeting” with the Government to promote exceptional measures, a route that they find more effective than the strike. CCOO also considers that the problems of the sector are not resolved with strikes “like the one called by a platform of self-employed drivers”, but with negotiation and with the opening of a social dialogue table. The Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Rachel Sanchezhas already announced that it will meet in the coming days with the CNTC to assess the prioritization of some of the measures of the royal decree-law that aims to improve the sustainability of road freight transport, which was approved on March 1.
One of the measures included in this regulation is the establishment of a mandatory revision of the price of transport when the cost of fuel varies from the moment of contracting until the effective performance of the transport.