The Government coordinates to avoid shortages in the strike of carriers

The Government is already working to mobilize the Police and the Civil Guard in the main distribution centers as of Sunday to prevent the strike called by the Platform in Defense of the Transport Sector from putting the merchandise supply chain at risk.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
08 November 2022 Tuesday 23:43
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The Government coordinates to avoid shortages in the strike of carriers

The Government is already working to mobilize the Police and the Civil Guard in the main distribution centers as of Sunday to prevent the strike called by the Platform in Defense of the Transport Sector from putting the merchandise supply chain at risk. The distribution sector has already issued a warning to the Ministry of Transport so that situations like those in March do not occur again, when there was a shortage of basic products on supermarket shelves.

It is the main concern of Carrefour, Mercadona, Alcampo, Dia and other distribution chains. That the indefinite strike in transport called by the minority organization in the sector ends up affecting its distribution chain. To this end, the Ministry of Transport is maintaining contacts with the Ministry of the Interior to deploy the State security forces and bodies in the main logistics platforms in the country and in the ports.

The distribution has directly questioned the minister Raquel Sánchez about what they do not want to happen from next Monday. On Monday, in a public act in Madrid in which the head of Transport participated, a Carrefour manager took the microphone to reproach Sánchez that there was "a problem of lack of anticipation" in the March strike. "We wanted to ask you to anticipate," she claimed, and "not to put the supply chain at risk." The distribution, therefore, does not look at Black Friday or the Christmas campaign, but at the present so that its shelves do not run the risk of being empty if unemployed truck drivers end up blocking the exit of vehicles, as happened seven months ago.

Transport sources explain that the first phase of the work consists of identifying what the "conflict points" may be during the strike. The agents will be deployed there, in places like Mercamadrid or the port of Barcelona. These sources add that since it is a strike, and not a strike, the organizers could not even organize an informative picket. What the Executive does affect is that the concentrations have to be peaceful and that the agents will have an order to “guarantee that those carriers who want to work do so.”

The Government internally assumes errors during the March strike. One of them was accusing the protesting truckers of belonging to the “extreme right”. Raquel Sánchez did it and it is something that the Executive is going to avoid now, say government sources.

The Ministry of Transport has maintained a fluid dialogue with the organizers of this strike in recent months to "inform of the measures" in force. Even a last-minute meeting to try to stop the strike is not ruled out. Sánchez herself assured this Tuesday that she would have "no problem" in meeting again with the Platform, despite the fact that the organization did not have and does not have representation in the National Committee for Road Transport.

The Government and the majority organizations insisted on Tuesday that the stoppages do not make sense at this time. "It does not benefit anyone, neither inside nor outside the sector," said the minister, asking for more time for the measures already approved to be deployed. Sánchez opened the door to improvements, one of which could be related to the fuel bonus. "We take into account that there are sectors more affected than others," said Sánchez.