Road freight transport companies in the Canary Islands they maintain their day of unemployment for next Monday, day in which they will stage a demonstration. However, they accept “the lines of negotiation proposed by the Public Administration”. Next week, the Minister of Transport of the Government of the Canary Islands, Sebastián Franquis, has promised to expose in Madrid – before the ministry of the branch – the demands of the sector. The majority associations in Tenerife have distanced themselves and will not participate in the mobilization.
This was decided by the assembly of the Association of Merchandise Transport Entrepreneurs (Asemtra) -integrated into the Federation of Transport Entrepreneurs (FET)- held on the afternoon of this Thursday. According to the statement made public by Asemtra itself, the lockout day is maintained “to facilitate support for the demonstration”.
Franquis offered on Thursday to carriers the setting up of a work table in which negotiate, with the presence of councils and unions, a common position on the use of the tachograph, then go with her to Madrid to defend a special treatment. The basis of this demand is the fragmentation and short distances that exist in the Islands, which, according to the transport employers, makes their work difficult and translates into an accumulation of sanctions.
Sebastián Franquis raises the demands of the sector in the Archipelago next week to Madrid
The counselor also promised to set a date for the negotiations, with the last day of January as the deadline to light the long-awaited common front. Asemtra wants the tachograph function to be limited to the control of breaks and working hours and Sebastián Franquis assured that he will analyze the regulation that details its use to determine the possibility of meeting those demands. Always without conflicting with the “labor legislation” and with the approval of the trade union organizations and the insular governments; the latter have jurisdiction in the matter.
You do not have to seek a common position to apply for a moratorium on the inspections that refrigerated trucks must pass. In the Islands there is no cold tunnel, which is essential to carry out this control work, and sending each truck to the Peninsula implies the disbursement of around 6,000 euros. “In a week, the Minister of Transport will submit to the Ministry of Industry the need for a temporary exemption for Canarian carriers from these controls,” the Asemtra leaders explained in the assembly. When the cold tunnel exists in the Canary Islands, the inspections will start, and not before.
In the domestic sphere, the Government of the Canary Islands has promised to start the parliamentary procedure for extend the bonus of 99% of the Special Tax on Fuels during 2023. Also, to promote, through a line of specific financing, the training of new drivers.
The Tenerife companies Transteco and Gestrans have decided not to stop, although “they reserve the right to take the necessary actions”, according to a note from CEOE-Tenerife, collected by Europa Press. These associations require the regional Administration a “clear calendar” for the solution of the problems that affect the viability of the companies and the jobs they support.
