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SPAIN: Truck Strike Continues, Despite Deal
By Alicia Fraerman
MADRID, Jun 12 , 2008 (IPS) - Although the Spanish government reached an agreement with the main truckers’ unions, around 10 percent of drivers continued blocking roads Thursday on the fourth day of a strike over soaring oil prices.
The National Transport Committee (CNT), which represents nearly 90 percent of the country’s truck drivers, reached an agreement Wednesday with the government of socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero that includes tax relief.
In addition, the CNT and the government agreed that contracts will be adjusted to reflect fuel price rises.
Truckers on strike in neighbouring Portugal also reached an agreement with the government Wednesday and called off a three-day stoppage in that country.
As announced by Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the Spanish police have begun breaking up picket lines, helping free up the flow of traffic around the country.
But truckers who rejected the agreement with the government continue blocking important access routes to cities like Madrid and Barcelona, and attacking non-striking drivers, mainly keeping them from delivering goods and supplying large supermarket chains.
The stoppage has been marked by violent incidents. In the southern province of Almería, 21 truckers were injured. In Granada, also in the south, a striking driver was run over and killed while blocking traffic. In Alicante, in the southeast, a driver was severely burned in a fire that completely destroyed four trucks. And outside of Madrid, strikers threw rocks that destroyed the windshield and one of the doors of a vehicle driven by a Bulgarian trucker Thursday.
In addition, 71 strikers were arrested Wednesday and Thursday for involvement in violent incidents.
In Barcelona in the northeast, one of the cities hit hardest by the strike, supplies of fish and fresh produce are down 85 percent and supermarket freezers are 90 percent empty. The slaughterhouse stopped operating on Monday.
And where supplies are available, shoppers have noticed sharp price hikes, due to the shortages as well as the higher cost of transportation, as deliveries are being carried out in small vans, to get around the roadblocks.
ASEDAS, the association of Spanish supermarkets and convenience stores, which represents more than 50 percent of the country’s food retailers, reported that its members have only been able to move 10 percent of the trucks that deliver supplies on a daily basis.
In one supermarket, Mercadona, located in Torrelodones, 30 km from Madrid, entire sections stood empty of fruit, vegetables, fish and seafood Thursday.
José, who works in the fish section in Mercadona, told IPS that only 10 percent of the frozen foods had arrived, and said that "if this continues, we’ll run out in a day or two."
But why are there no customers lining up to buy what little is left? this journalist asked. "Because many more customers than normal came in on Tuesday and Wednesday, and to prepare for any eventualities, they bought enough to last several days," he said.
People have also been stocking up at service stations, most of which have already hung out signs reading "No petrol" or "No gasoil". Most customers not only filled their tanks, but also filled up jerry cans, just in case.
Trade ties with Latin America have enabled the government to get around some of the effects caused by the truckers’ stoppage and by a partial fishermen’s strike.
Planes from Chile have brought in frozen hake, for instance. And the rate of deliveries from that country has not slowed down, since Madrid has 200 storage chambers capable of holding 200 tons of frozen fish each.
But the roadblocks have not only affected food supplies. The pharmaceutical industry has warned that the transport strike could affect distribution of medicines to pharmacies around the country.
Prime Minister Zapatero said Thursday that everything was under control, and that timely measures had been taken. But Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the centre-right Popular Party - the main opposition force - retorted that the country was in total chaos.
(END)
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