The CCOO and UGT unions have called for several days of strike in the transport sector. Strikes planned for several days in October, November and December, after which they would become unlimited, if there is no prior agreement. Behind this labor conflict lies the attempt to increase the retirement age of professionals in the sector.
For the moment, there is nothing definitive, because the dialogue between companies, unions and the government is not closed.
However, the mobilization of the workforce highlights the problems of the sector, although in this case the call is very different from the last lockouts which, two years ago, blocked the roads and prevented the operation industry for days. We analyze what this mobilization consists of and who is called to support it.
Who is called to strike?
The UGT and CCOO appeal to transport professionals, but not all, although with many nuances. Unions want to mobilize workers in the goods sector, both those who drive heavy trucks and smaller ones, such as vans, including those who deliver orders to homes.
Professionals in the road passenger transport sector, who work in vehicles with more than nine seats, are also called to mobilize. That is, buses and minibuses. On the other hand, urban public transport drivers and health workers, such as ambulance workers, are summoned.
For the moment, workers in taxis and vehicle rentals with drivers, VTCs, are excluded from the strike days in this latter part of the year. Neither do intercity bus drivers.
In total, the people summoned far exceed half a million people, because according to the unions, these are only those linked to the transport of goods. It must be taken into account that in this figure there is also a high number of self-employed workers. But according to the unions, they are also called to strike because the working conditions – and the difficulties of accessing early retirement – are the same.
When are strikes planned?
The unions called for six days of 24-hour strikes. It is scheduled for October 28, November 11, 28 and 29; and December 5 and 9. In this way, the strikes coincide with key dates for commerce, where purchases skyrocket, such as Black Friday, scheduled for the 29th of next month, although in recent years discounts have been extended by several days. In addition, it also coincides with the December long weekend, with the travel that entails.
Alongside these days, the appeal filed to the Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration Service (SIMA) reflects an indefinite strike that will begin on December 23, coinciding with Christmas.
Why was the strike called?
Basically, it is about raising the retirement age and making it easier for those who have been behind the wheel for many years to leave.
The main demand of these days of strike is the early retirement of drivers, which implies the application of decreasing coefficients due to the “difficulty and dangerousness of the profession”, as highlighted by the workers’ representatives. Conditions which, they emphasize, present a risk not only for these employees, but also for third parties. The unions emphasize that these are professionals who “already pay six times more than other workers for their contributions in terms of work accidents and occupational diseases”.
They also ask that voluntary partial retirement with a replacement contract for drivers be considered by agreement. These would accumulate a percentage of hours that another, younger person would work. This, they say, would be a temporary solution until reducing coefficients are accumulated. In addition, they believe that it would facilitate the replacement and entry of young people into a sector where companies have been saying for years that they need more workers.
CCOO and UGT also denounce the immobility of employers in the sector when it comes to listening to their demands and that they have not found a response from the Ministries of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Labor and of the Social Economy, and of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. . In addition, they criticize the fact that in recent months initiatives have reached Congress and the Senate – by parliamentary groups, which they have not mentioned – to try to unblock the situation, which has not evolved either. .
Had the unions and the government not agreed on early retirement because of the difficulties?
Yes, the reason for the strike was surprising, because the CCOO and UGT union centers at state level agreed with the Ministry of Social Security on the latest pension reform just a few months ago, end of July. It included a new procedure for access to early retirement due to hardship, which will be developed in a regulation, in addition to the modification of partial retirement and the relief contract.
Ministry sources remember this agreement precisely before the strike was announced. “A procedure has just been agreed with the interlocutors to establish the reduction coefficients for particularly arduous and dangerous professions on the basis of objective indicators. And we are working to develop it legally.
The organizers, the Transport sector of CCOO and the UGT, defended this Monday that their strike “is not contradictory” with the agreement of their confederal organizations. “There is no contradiction between the agreements with the government and this call for a strike,” they assured. There is none because these are agreements which “still need to be developed” and which have not been translated into the reality of the transport sector. “As long as the royal decree is not published, it is of no use,” they explain. What they are looking for, they repeated, “is an agreement with employers” that makes retirement easier.
How is this strike different from carrier strikes?
It’s the same sector, but they are very different mobilizations. From now on, employees are called to strike, whether in goods or passenger transport companies. However, in a sector as diverse as this, where there are truck, ambulance or van drivers, there is a high percentage of self-employed workers – something the unions have not specified – who are also invited to join the mobilizations. Indeed, they launch “an appeal to all road transport workers and all their organizations to make the strike a success and achieve the objectives that motivate it”.
In recent years, lockouts have been initiated by employers’ organizations, although there were also self-employed workers. Indeed, during the mobilizations of March 2022, the multitude of sensitivities within the National Road Transport Committee (CNTC) was evident. It is the official voice of the transport sector and the one that meets the ministry, but within it there were organizations which did not formally support the strikes but which, de facto, carried them out.
Furthermore, in these strikes the political orientation was evident with the appearance of Manuel Hernández, self-proclaimed representative of the sector, who attempted the strikes again last February, but failed due to lack of support.
Is there a chance the strike will be called off?
Yes, the union representatives repeated several times during the press conference during which they called for strikes that negotiations are still open, that a change of attitude is sought by both employers in the transport sector and by the government, so that it accelerates with the changes that will facilitate early retirement.
“We continue to work. Our objective is not a strike, it is negotiation,” the unions stressed. For the moment, no demonstrations or mobilizations are planned in large cities, although they are not excluded if the negotiations do not bear fruit.
