https://hongkong.asiaxpat.com/Utility/GetImage.ashx?ImageID=4a5b3fe4-52f7-4623-99a3-129b3f4b9db2&refreshStamp=0
Truck drivers were on an indefinite nationwide strike for a second day yesterday, blocking major ports, highways and distribution centers across Spain. An estimated 75,000 truckers are joining the strike, called by the Platform for the Defense of Road Transport of Merchandise that account for account for 85 percent of smaller truck companies and self-employed truckers. They are protesting rising fuel prices and poor working conditions after decades of rampant exploitation.
The struggle is rapidly developing into a confrontation with Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government, which is deploying heavily armed police against the picket lines, and the NATO policy of war with Russia that is driving up fuel prices worldwide.
At a picket line in the industrial zone in San Fernando de Henares, Madrid, a striker was shot reportedly when he resisted arrest, unaware that he was facing an undercover policeman. The striker, aged 33, was taken to the La Princesa hospital in serious condition with a gunshot wound to his abdomen. Another striker was injured less seriously by the police shooting.
This is a warning that the PSOE and Podemos are willing to unleash mass violence against strikers, only a few months after it deployed armored cars and police squads firing rubber bullets at striking metalworkers in Cadiz.
According to El Confidencial Digital, the PSOE-Podemos government has drafted plans to deploy the police and army to escort fuel truck convoys to gas stations. The Interior Ministry has a special police plan to escort convoys to transport medicine, food supplies, animals for slaughterhouses, supplies for livestock and industrial parts to factories. Yesterday, Spanish police already escorted more than 20 trucks in Asturias.
The strike is already having an immense impact, despite government denials. Spain’s Logistics and Transport Business Organization warned of “serious complications” in supply chains and requested “the immediate intervention of the Government to guarantee security and thus avoid a possible shortage.” The Asturian employers association confirmed a “very high impact.” The National Federation of Dairy Industries has warned that the strike could lead to “serious problems in the supply” of dairy products.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/16/spai-m16.html