Long lines at Madrid interchanges and at urban bus stops in Barcelona, Malaga or Valencia, among other cities, but the first of the seven days of strike called for the transport of passengers by road has started without serious incidents in the points of greatest influx of travelers in the country. Some 90,000 bus drivers have been called to a 24-hour strike in search of recognition of the hardship and danger of the profession and, with it, the establishment of reducing coefficients that anticipate the retirement age.
Among the first unofficial monitoring data, union sources speak of a rate close to 80% among workers not affected by minimum services, which in the case of school transportation is close to 100%.
Early in the morning, the breakage of some bus windows in services on the A-6 corridor in Madrid had been reported. The action of pickets that have altered school transport services, for example in Castellón, has also been recorded. But after the early hours of the morning, everything seems to indicate that the mobilization will be of very different magnitude depending on the city. The Vitoria city council, for example, has reported a low incidence, with only six of 72 drivers on the morning shift not having gone to the garages.
In Barcelona and Tarragona, the Administration had been warned of a possible collapse of transport during critical hours for mobility. In the second case, the bus strike coincides with cuts on the railway within the framework of the Mediterranean Corridor works.
After these first 24 hours of strike, another six are called: November 11, 28 and 29, and December 5, 9 and 23. If by this last date there is no agreement between employers and unions, the majority confederations CC OO and UGT warn that the next pressure measure will be an indefinite strike.
The Ministry of Transport has established minimum services of at least 50% on state-owned routes, which should be fully served when it comes to direct lines. In the case of regional or municipal transportation, the minimum services are of different scope in each corner of the country. Traveler attention obligations vary from the 60% that Navarra has stipulated for peak hours, to 50% in the Balearic Islands or 40% in Catalonia. In the city of Madrid, minimum services reach 75% for EMT buses during peak hours, and 50% during off-peak hours. In the case of intercity routes within the Community of Madrid, the maximum reaches 80% during peak hours, dropping to 45% during off-peak hours.
The Generalitat government has ordered, throughout Catalonia, minimum services of the aforementioned 40% during peak hours – between 6:30 and 9:30 and between 16:00 and 20:00 – while during the The rest of the day the service will be reduced to 20% of a working day. In the case of school buses or those that transport people with disabilities, it has been agreed to maintain 85% of the usual service. The information pickets have been deployed at dawn to the different garages after the desperate negotiations to cancel the strike did not come to a successful conclusion, reports Alfonso L. Congostrina.
The railway works in Roda de Berà (Tarragona) forced Renfe to hire dozens of buses to offer the alternative route. The strike in this mode of transport will further complicate the situation for users who will only have 161 of the 600 routes agreed upon by Rodalies.
Stalled negotiations
The employers’ associations Confebus and the Association of Urban and Metropolitan Public Transport (ATUC) have regretted that the labor conflict has broken out without the required negotiation table taking place. The parties did go through the SIMA Mediation Service without that contact concluding with an agreement. The strike Yes, it was deactivated last week in the case of ambulances and professional transport of goods. In the case of road passenger transport, business associations demand dialogue and a study on the impact that an early retirement regime would have on the sector. Confebus has revealed on numerous occasions that bus companies suffer from a deficit of more than 4,000 drivers.
The benefit of early retirement without penalty in pensions, enjoyed by train drivers or air pilots, among other groups, has been claimed by bus drivers from Social Security since 2011.
Regarding the risks of driving, the unions maintain that more than two thirds of the 120 professional drivers who die each year on average on the road are over 55 years of age. In fact, CC OO and UGT complain that these losses are masked as traffic accidents and are not taken into account as workplace accidents.
Article 206 of the General Social Security Law establishes that the minimum age of access to the retirement pension may be lowered by royal decree, at the proposal of the head of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, in those groups or professional activities whose jobs are of an exceptionally arduous, toxic, dangerous or unhealthy nature and have high rates of morbidity or mortality
