Government has approved this Tuesday a resolution by which lengthens the maximum working day of salaried transport drivers from 9 to 11 hours a day. This measure will be in force until March 27 and from CCOO they have denounced that the Executive intends to compensate for the lack of drivers due to carrier strikes by overloading employees who cannot join the protests. “Beaten and restless. Salaried workers continue to be hostages and victims of the chaos in the sector with the complicity of the Ministry of Transport”, the union denounced in a statement. The measure has not been negotiated with the legal representation of the workers and from the central they are studying legal measures.
From the central they explain that the new resolution published by the General Directorate of Land Transport will allow companies to impose on their employees the obligation to drive up to 11 hours a day, when before they were a maximum of 9 hours. To which must be added the presence times (for loading and unloading the genre, for example). And that the hours of daily rest during periods of service are limited to 9 hours a day, when before they were 11 hours. The Secretary of Transport of the CCOO, Francisco Vegas, have described this resolution as “shameful” and that “it represents an attack against the safety and health of workers”.
“The call for an indefinite strike in the road freight transport sector, since last Monday, March 14, is affecting the normal operation of certain flows of goods for the transfer of raw materials to production centers, industries and in the final distribution of the products In order to mitigate the effects that may derive from the above, it is necessary to establish, at the national level, a series of temporary exceptions“, justifies the Ministry of Transport in its resolution.
The road freight transport sector faces its ninth day of strikes this Tuesday, which does not strike, because of the protests Only employers and employees have been able to join. It is not a claim against a specific company or employer and does not obey the classic labor conflict between employees and management. It is a strike to which companies and the self-employed voluntarily join and which wage earners are prohibited by law from supporting. Well, unless the company explicitly releases them, they must comply with their work day. This has meant that wage earners have had to directly suffer the consequences of the stoppages, either due to the incidence of road closures, or due to the specific violent actions that have been recorded in recent days and as a result of which the Police have arrested a total of 44 people throughout the country.