The call for a strike in the transport sector, called by an association without representation and which gained prominence through the dissemination of alarmist messages about the hypothetical shortage of supplies that it would trigger, has reached its third day without ever exceeding the condition of minority. But still, it’s about to start having serious consequences in the distribution of some products and threatens the operations of many companies in sectors such as agriculture, food or the automotive industry.
Without the involvement of the organizations that represent the road transport sector, the organizers have entrusted the success of their call more to the boycott of the road network, with pickets at sensitive points for the traffic of goods, than the proper monitoring among professionals. The protests, denounces the CEOE employers, threatens to cause “serious damage to the supply chain”, which is added to that of the rising energy and raw material prices that the companies are already suffering, and the majority transporters’ associations themselves demand that the Administration act to avoid damages to those who are not supporting the protest. The government’s response has been to act “forcefully” against acts of “violence, force and coercion.”
The confusing identity of the convening platform and some of its messages allow us to harbor some doubts about the motivations of the initiative. But not even the extemporaneousness of its behavior or the little organic representativeness of the organizers of the protest makes it advisable to downplay it, not even as a symptom. Failure to provide a reasonable response to objective problems through the appropriate channels (interlocution with the affected social agents, agile decision-making beyond vague promises and transparent information) means risking the discomfort being channeled through unconstructive and difficult trails especially if they are abducted by those who have already practiced more than once the mechanisms of the most reactionary populism. The ghost of the yellow vests it never stops flying over like a horizon to be avoided.
Beyond the promise not to allow the protests to lead to intolerable coercion against those who want to work, something that has nothing to do with the right to strike, and the need for the Administration to guarantee that security of supply is maintained of basic goods, as forcefully as necessary, the solution must come rather from dialogue forums such as the one that the Government maintains open with the organizations that represent 90% of the sector to make its activity viable despite the increase in fuel price. And that the Government’s still vague promises to contain the prices of electricity, gas and gasoline come to fruition as soon as possible.