![]() Spain’s trade unions have worked to isolate the truckers strike and refused to mobilize workers in their defense. He added, “the spokesman of the transport association that has led the strike is a man of Vox,” Spain’s main neo-fascist party, ignoring repeated statements from Transport spokesman Manuel Fernandez that he has no political affiliations. “The most reasonable would be to end the strikes” after the PSOE-Podemos government reached a deal with the big-business National Confederation of Road Transport (CNTC), he said. Yesterday, Podemos parliamentary spokesman Pablo Echenique again attacked the Platform, saying the strike should have ended after the state reached a deal with larger trucking companies. The statements of the CEOE and of Sanchez’s PSOE demanding an end to the strike were echoed by the trade union bureaucracies, that have denounced the truckers strike as illegal, and the “left populist” Podemos party, which has slandered the truckers as fascists. … It is difficult to understand why action was not more rapidly taken in the face of supply shortages and to help those who could not keep their businesses active because of the strike.” “In this situation,” the CEOE wrote in a statement, “the clamor from business and from society threatens to erupt in the face of political inaction. Last week, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) issued a warning demanding urgent action to end the strike before it causes greater damage to their profits and provokes an uncontrollable eruption of strikes and protests. ![]() With its €16 billion package, Sanchez’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos coalition government hopes to end the strike, which it has failed to suppress despite a massive mobilization of 23,000 riot police, without ending any of its anti-worker policies to enrich the financial aristocracy.ĭemands for Sanchez’s package came not from the strikers, who are demanding legal protection from being forced to operate at a loss due to high fuel prices, but from Spanish big business. NATO’s policy of cutting Russian oil, gas and grain out of world markets amid the NATO war on Russia in Ukraine is further accelerating the surge in prices.ĭeputy Prime Minister and Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz, who is also the leader of the Podemos party, hailed Sanchez’s proposal to the IBEX-35: “This situation is absolutely exceptional and the steps we’re taking will, I think, offer us a way out of this huge crisis.” In reality, Sanchez’s package neither aims to redistribute the trillions of euros handed over to the investing classes in recent years, nor to end the mounting danger of a world war erupting in Europe. Prices for fuel, foodstuffs and other basic commodities have surged as inflation is driven by the disorganization of supply chains and massive printing of money by central banks, notably during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sanchez’s proposed measures do not address truckers’ concerns or address the underlying causes of price hikes that are devastating working people in Spain and internationally. “The analysis of the current situation in transport is that for now, we are much worse off working than we are striking, fuel is expensive and expected to rise much higher,” the Platform stated, adding: “We will continue to the end.” ![]() The Platform for the Defense of Road Transport of Merchandise, the association of small trucking firms and self-employed truckers which has called the strike, issued a statement rejecting the package as inadequate and demanding a law ensuring that their clients cannot force them to operate at a loss. On Monday, average petrol prices in Spain ranged between €1.84 and 1.98 per liter, while diesel stood at between €1.86 and 1.95. It is to remain in place until June 30 and effect “a minimum reduction of 20 cents per liter of fuel,” Sanchez said, with 15 cents of the reduction being financed by the state and 5 cents by oil companies. This is a temporary measure that will only partially compensate for the explosion in fuel prices. Trucks gather to protest against the high price of fuel outskirts of Madrid, Spain, Thursday, March 24, 2022.
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