“Gentlemen, we are being the example of an entire country, we cannot throw in the towel now under any circumstances. We have to continue until the end, the last push remains and we have to show that we are capable of achieving it, because never before had we had the opportunity that we have given ourselves today”. Thus begins the harangue launched by Manuel Hernández, president of Platform, to ask the truck drivers who are following the strikes to continue forward during the third week of the strike. In Asturias they recognize that the days without working are already weighing, but the IUF points out that they have no other alternative than to move on: “We lose money anyway and we are not going to start up,” concludes the president of the Asturian subsidiary of Platform, José Fernández.
IUF affiliates will meet today in an assembly, but the feeling in the organization is that the strike will continue for another week, as proposed by Platform. Cesintra, the other large employers’ association that supports the strike in Asturias, has already decided by “an immense majority” to continue with the strike despite the agreement reached by its parent company, Fenadismer, with the Executive. “We are not asking for handouts, the help they want to give is not the solution to anything,” says the president of Platform, Manuel Hernández, in a statement to his partners.
In Asturias, the strikers are aware of the “damage” they are doing to the economy. José Fernández, from the IUF, however, hopes not to lose “the support of the street”. The people, he assures, understand the needs of the sector and are being “understanding” with the strike. For now, the organizers of the mobilizations have won the support of Vox. Macarena Olona, spokesperson for the party in Congress, encouraged the strikers to maintain their demands and “not surrender the streets.” From the PP, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, yesterday urged the Executive to solve the problem “by the shortest, simplest and most direct way, which is to lower taxes”, while the parliamentary spokesman for Ciudadanos, Edmundo Bal, believed that the agreement reached with the employers of the sector is “totally insufficient”.
From the IUF they point out that they will continue to allow a kind of “minimum services”, especially in the food sector so as not to finish breaking the supply chain in some especially vulnerable sectors: “We will continue to allow the collection of milk and the unloading of fruit and perishable food to a certain extent, there are still fewer things in the supermarket, but we do not want people to go hungry”, argues the Asturian leader of the protests.
The situation is different with the industry, where they want to find an ally. His idea is that the big companies pressure the government to take action and not the pickets or the protesters: “This affects us all,” the carriers conclude.
Hundreds of trucks paraded yesterday in a “slow march” on the M-30 in Madrid. Hernández again rejected the “long-term promises” and assured that he will only call off the strike when there is a decree that prevents contracting below costs, provisionally, until the law that the Government intends to publish in June is approved. Minister Teresa Ribera acknowledged that “no one can work at a loss” to add that the Government has already accepted this “idea”.