Spain: the causes of the truck drivers' strike and the reason for the government's tantrum

@ElentirENG ES 3·18·2022 · 21:16 0

The truck drivers' strike that is taking place in Spain is already beginning to deplete supermarkets of basic products.

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Truck drivers have been denouncing for months that they work at a loss

Of course, there are plenty of reasons for this strike. Truck drivers have been denouncing for months that they are working at a loss due to the rise in fuel prices, which was already seriously noticeable last year. As we have already seen here, faced with this same problem, on February 1, the Polish government -of the Law and Justice party, a partner of the Spanish conservative party Vox- announced a drastic drop in VAT on fuels, from 23% to 8%, in order to to contain inflation.

PSOE and Podemos refuse to apply the tax cut that was made in Poland

In Spain the same could have been done, but the PSOE (socialist party) and Podemos (far-left party) are systematically opposed to any reduction in tax pressure for ideological reasons: they are rooted in the idea that the State appropriates a growing portion of the national wealth under the pretext of "redistributing" it, a socialist recipe that has already led Cuba and Venezuela to ruin. But our left is indifferent to reality and refuses to recognize that its proposals may be wrong.

Sánchez fired the subsidies to the unions to guarantee their obedience

Instead of alleviating the unbearable tax burdens that Spaniards bear, on March 8 the government shot up subsidies to unions by 23%, a way to bribing them so that they continue living at the expense of the taxpayer and do not give problems to Pedro Sánchez, the President of the goverment. As if that was not enough, that same day Irene Montero announced an obscene squandering of more than 20,000 million euros in "feminist policies", that is, in organizations related to the PSOE and Podemos. It was the straw that broke the patience of many Spaniards.

Vox will demonstrate tomorrow against the colossal squandering announced by Montero

After Montero's announcement, which will mean more burdens on taxpayers, Vox -the third most voted party in Spain- announced demonstrations for this Saturday, March 19 against government squandering and the rise in the price of electricity. Everything points to the fact that, as things stand, it could be the largest mobilization that the party has called to date.

The truck drivers' strike called by a platform that does not receive subsidies

Likewise, on March 14, the Platform for the Defense of the National and International Road Freight Transport Sector, an organization that does not receive subsidies, called a truck drivers' strike starting on March 14, denouncing that 90% of small and medium-sized transport companies are already in a situation of total bankruptcy.

The clumsy response of the government: linking the strike with the 'far-right' and with Putin

And what did the government do to respond to truck drivers' complaints? In the case of a leftist government, some will think that their concerns would be on the side of those workers. Nothing further. What the government has done is to mobilize 24,000 police and civil guards and insult the carriers, linking them to the "far-right" and even to Putin. An attitude that is already typical of an executive who in all the control sessions of the government in Congress is dedicated to disqualifying the opposition, as if it bothered him that in Spain there are people who show their disagreement with the government, something that is harshly repressed in friendly regimes of Podemos such as Cuba and Venezuela.

Their open bar for the picketers explodes in the hands of the PSOE and Podemos

The problem that the government will now encounter in dealing with violent picketing is that last year the PSOE, Podemos and their partners legalized coactive picketers, eliminating from the Penal Code the crime of coercion against those who wish to go to work in the event of a strike call. I already warned here that this was an attack against the workers' rights , but the left insisted on putting the whims of its related unions above the fundamental rights of the Spaniards.

A reform designed to sow violence if the right returned to government

Paradoxically, now the PSOE and Podemos are charging against the violent pickets of the truck drivers' strike, perhaps because they did not expect the law to turn against them (that is why they have triggered subsidies to the unions). As I already pointed out here in December, that law seemed designed to sow violence in the event that the right wing returned to govern. Let us remember, without going any further, that on December 15, communist Vice President Yolanda Díaz threatened Vox with "massive strikes and mobilizations" if it reaches the Spanish government.

Canada's precedent and Justin Trudeau's clumsy response

It is ironic to see that their own infamy has exploded in the hands of the PSOE and Podemos, and now, instead of taking measures like those adopted by the Polish government to alleviate the situation that many professionals are experiencing, what they are doing is entrenched and resort to the security forces. The last government to do something so clumsy was that of Canada, in the face of truckers' protests against the restrictions on freedoms imposed by Justin Trudeau under the guise of the pandemic. The protest eventually overwhelmed the Canadian government, which chose to treat the strikers as criminals by resorting to a 1988 anti-terrorism law that had never been used in Canada. If Sánchez chooses the same path, everything indicates that he will end up facing the social explosion that he tried to avoid with his rain of millions to the subsidized unions.

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Photo: Europa Press.