Both Tradisna and Hiru held workers’ assemblies on the afternoon of this Wednesday. The three members of the staff have met at Lasarte Oria (Gipuzkoa) to decide whether or not they continue the strike. The 50 carriers voted in favour of returning to work, 31 against and 8 abstained in the vote. The Tradisna Assembly was held in the town of Imarcoain (Navarra). 110 hauliers supported the strike, while 94 were in favour of maintaining it.

No repair

Representatives of the two trade unions have recognized that the situation has not been solved by abandoning the strike at the Bizkaibus plant. Three of them have stated that, although the assembly decides to go back to work, some union members will not return to work because they “are not worth it”. The trade union has welcomed “the visibility of the problem in public opinion, the massive mobilisations made, the progress made in transporter complaints, the opening of doors and the willingness of the governments of Navarre and Vasco to dialogue, as well as the fiscal measures and subsidies announced yesterday, which were initially beneficial to self-employed carriers, pending ratification and concretization”. It also does not rule out the call for new mobilisations “for self-employed carriers to continue working in decent conditions and defending the Basque transport network”.

The coordinator of Tradisna, Alberto Lator, has stated in the ganbara program of Radio Euskadi that although the vast majority of the workers of the union have decided to abandon the strike, most believe that the demands of the sector have not been met: “That’s the general view.” He explained that the decision to return to work has been made mainly because the strike "was crumbling" and "people were crumbling".

Strikes continue in the port of Bilbao

Most of the 700 carriers in the port of Bilbao are still on strike. Negotiations with the transport companies in the port of Bilbao are ongoing and have not yet been concluded. Improvements offered by companies include a 12% increase in diesel, which would be reviewed month by month, and an increase in service payment based on the annual CPI for the coming years. Self-employed carriers believe that this is not enough. They stress that further improvements are needed to correct the worsening conditions of the past 15 years.