“If the mobilizations are prolonged, there will be an important change and what until now is considered unpopular by most people as legitimate and peaceful. The shortage of essential products and the lack of logistics services in some sectors ended the discontent with the Government. It is the alert that the State Security Forces and Bodies have sent in recent days after the escorts to trucks and the monitoring of the protests. And that alert has reached the Executive table, as ABC has learned. Finally, late this Friday afternoon, carriers announced that the strike would continue.
keys that the hanging government handled all day yesterday and early today to reach an agreement after 14 hours of negotiation that involves the approval of an aid plan worth 1.000 million euros, which includes the bonus of 20 cents for liter of diesel, gasoline, gas and adBlue to the transport sector until, at least, June 30, among other measures such as direct aid and facilities with lines of credit.
However, the Executive has not been able to stop the strikes, mainly because the convening organization, the Platform in Defense of the Transport of Goods, does not recognize the pact, both because of the insufficiency of the agreement and because they have not been considered as interlocutors. This morning thousands of drivers have demonstrated along the Paseo de la Castellana and the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, has decided to give her arm to twist and meet with the representatives of that organization, with its leader, Manuel Hernández, at the head, to what had been denied until now.
Sources from the Security Forces consulted by ABC warn that the situation will be complicated if their stoppages persist and they have transferred it to the Executive.
The sources consulted by ABC consider that with this gesture the first big step is taken so that the situation gradually normalizes, something that has already happened since the early hours of this morning. Even if there is no agreement, in the morning the mere fact that the meeting would take place - one of the main previous demands - will be considered relevant for many truckers to have decided to return to work. However, until Sunday night, which is when many carriers join, there will be no absolute certainty as to whether the agreement this morning and the meeting this afternoon have served to defuse the protests.
In the meeting, it was not accentuated with too much optimism because for the moment the Platform maintained the indefinite strike. “Ultra-right”, in the words of Minister María Jesús Montero or “patron strike”, according to the general secretary of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, its definitions that have bothered carriers. Government and unions have chosen to discredit the carriers that since last day 14 have paralyzed the flow of goods and supplies, until the tension has forced the Executive to close an agreement by forced marches with the employers. Day after day, sectors affected by unemployment have been falling while concern has increased.
Sources from the Security Forces consulted by ABC warn that the situation will be much more complicated if these stoppages persist and are supported as they have been until now, and this has been transferred to the Executive. When Pedro Sánchez announced on Wednesday in the control session that the next day the Government would not lift the table until there was an agreement, he already had that information.
That yes, the same sources assure that "we have not detected anything of that that elements of the extreme right are behind the protests". The only member of the Government who has agreed on this diagnosis is the Minister of Employment, Yolanda Díaz, who rejected the label of "extreme right", awarded to the "yellow vests" of the trucks.
5.757 convoys escorted, 61 arrested and 445 investigated/reported, as of Wednesday
The Platform for the Defense of the Transport of Goods, the minority association of freelancers and small businesses, convener of the strikes, is where the street game has won. At least for now. The x-ray of affected sectors resulted in demolition and the Government has it on its table. But it will get worse if the carriers mobilized despite the agreement signed this morning, according to that diagnosis, and it could lead to violence despite the fact that those behind this break insist that they will not carry out such acts.
So far the violence has not broken out. The transport businessmen attribute it to two factors: the fear of damage to the vehicles – only very safe transport is being carried out or escorted by the Civil Guard and the Police within the National Police – and the internal struggle of the National Committee for Road Transport ( CNTC) ).
One of the posters in the transportation demonstration – José Ramón Ladra
Even so, without a great conflict, it should be noted, until Wednesday the National Police and the Civil Guard had already had to escort 5.757 convoys, they had arrested 61 people and another 445 have been investigated/reported, while the marches were taking place throughout the countries reported to Government Delegations and Subdelegations.
Companies in the agri-food chain have been overcoming difficulties to maintain distribution for days. Supermarkets are losing 130 million euros every 24 hours due to the impact of this stoppage. The breweries have warned of possible shortages due to lack of raw material. The consequences fully reach the battered hotel industry to which this drink reports up to 25 percent of profits in many establishments.
Like the pieces of a domino, one pushes the other until the last one falls. The direct economic consequences are obvious; however, there is no loss of sight of the detriment to employment, if this situation is not stopped. Some reports indicate that in the food and beverage sectors alone, some 100.000 of the 450.000 workers they employ may be affected.
And the employers of the producers of construction materials maintain that the lack of materials persists, will lead to the closure of the stores that sell them and, therefore, the interruption of the works, something that is already taking place although it has not been quantified.
The conflict has been changing. Those who obtained these strikes are self-employed and small businessmen, as has been said, a Platform that does not feel represented by the National Committee of Road Transport (CNTC), and that during the first days had difficulties in coordinating the mobilizations. Several carrier federations (Fenadismer, Feintra and Fetransa) were willing to join, but after the agreement they will not do so.
Manifestation of carriers in Madrid – José Ramón Ladra
Among these very representative almost 25 percent within the Committee and only one of them brings together more than 32.000 companies with about 60.000 vehicles. This sum is the one that caused concern because with these supports it seemed inevitable that the stoppages would have an even greater impact.
The Platform has repeatedly assured that they will not carry out acts of violence, but the Security Forces and Bodies do not share this diagnosis. “The chain is very stressed and there are too many expectations placed by those who have organized themselves in a different way, apart from traditional unions and their own federations. That can spread in other sectors. It is a quite unprecedented movement and difficult to calculate all the consequences. There is enormous dissatisfaction and tension."
There is another element of concern: that the example of Transport spreads and that now more and more workers are grouped around new organizations far from the unions and traditional organizations, which are losing more and more representation.
