While the businessmen of the transport sector refused to declare themselves unemployed, a group of independent truckers remains firm in their demands and pressures blocking the roads. Who are they and what do they ask for?
The transporters’ union, particularly that of cargo transporters, is like a small Colombia: diverse and uneven. It goes from transport companies (intermediaries) to independent truckers (owners or drivers). All of them participate in the movement of 70% of the cargo that is generated in the country.
And although in general terms transporters fight for the same cause, the dominant position of freight generators, that is, those who hire them to move goods, also have profound differences that fueled the intentions of small groups throughout the country to demonstrate when price whatever.
In the first place, freight transport activity is full of long-standing inefficiencies: informality, insecurity, oversupply of vehicles, traffic on roads in poor condition, detours that lengthen trips, excessive payment of tolls, high insurance costs, increases in gasoline, 90-day bill collection, scrap policy, restrictions to enter cities, traffic jams for loading and unloading at ports, cost overruns due to unforeseen events, lack of complementary infrastructure, etc.
All these obstacles have caused the country a significant delay in terms of competitiveness, because they increase logistics costs, as demonstrated by National Planning.
The truth is that the last link in the logistics chain, the independent trucker, has not had the ability to negotiate with the Government. Today they themselves, owners of 80% of the country’s trucks, recognize that the organizations that were created to represent them did not really look out for their interests: “we had been betrayed by those unions, they were sold, they were given away, they used us,” he said. Alberto Palma, founder of Familia Camionera, a foundation formed in mid-2018 that works “for a dignified treatment by the union.”
What bothered them the most was that they had already agreed with the Colombian Association of Truckers (ACC) and with the National Trucking Crusade, which groups together the Association of Cargo Transporters (ATC), the National Association of Transporters (ANT) and the Colombian Confederation of Transporters (CCT), which would call for a strike. However, the heads of the aforementioned unions were thrown back when the president, Iván Duque, announced the withdrawal of the tax reform.
Some independent truckers felt that with or without reform they had reasons to complain to the government. That is why they decided to organize and make themselves felt, without visible leaders, as individuals who agreed. Currently, with 120 assembly points that are managed independently, protesters decide on their own where to block and for how long. “This strike has been a total success, because it is led by 40 people recognized by their community. We have communication, but each one decides who to let pass according to the realities of their region. We are on those terms, we don’t let whoever wants to pass by ”, highlighted Palma.
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google News“We were not going to go into strike, we were only going to march as Colombians. This problem was put together by representation, the trucking sector is tired of being manipulated and groped, “said Calixto Fernández, a truck driver from Susacón, Boyacá.
In addition, they had another debt to collect from the Government. According to Palma, since this administration began, they asked the Minister of Transport, Ángela María Orozco, to allow them to sit at the entity’s work tables (280 meetings have been held in the last year), but it had not been possible . “This should have been done many years ago. We told the minister that the other truckers unions were only going for handouts, and we did not work with that or accept it; we brought her tests, but she didn’t want to listen to us or acknowledge us, until we got to this ”.
And this is how a national strike was reached, aggravated by permanent blockades on national roads that, in the refusal of the organizers to let any vehicle pass, have caused supply problems and increased prices of products, among other blows in the lives of the women. people. On the road to Tocancipá, for example, an ambulance was attacked and detained for 15 minutes when it was driving a pregnant woman to the hospital because, the protesters said, the vehicle was carrying weapons camouflaged for Esmad. The baby died while they were waiting.
The Ministry of Transport organized over the last weeks at least two daily work tables with the spokespersons of the sector since the mobilizations and blockades began by subject, by region, by type of transport, among others. In them, taxi drivers, special service drivers, inter-municipal public transport unions, dump trucks, freight transport companies, light cargo transporters and even independent truckers have been heard. However, with some leaders of the latter group there are few agreements.
“We are still unemployed and harder,” said Calixto Fernández, spokesman for the Conciencia Camionera movement and the Asocamioneros Chiquinquirá union. The truckers he represents have asked the transport portfolio for “the minimum to be able to work”, including the sub-approvals of the load capacity of the vehicles and the strict compliance of one to one, a measure that was decreed to control the oversupply of vehicles and that is that in order to put a new vehicle into service, an old one must be scrapped. “From this we are not going to return, because we made the truckers believe that we are going to achieve something real after almost three years of fixing small problems that got worse. So to press hard and if we do not come out with anything we will press harder, “he said.
After the meetings on Monday and Wednesday of this past week, the Ministry of Transportation agreed to clarify that the Efficient Cost Information System for Automotive Freight Transportation (SICE-TAC) is mandatory and that in no case is it they will be able to make payments to carriers below the stipulated costs to guarantee competition and limit abuse of dominant position. It also accepted that the table of maximum gross vehicle weight allowed in scale control is applicable for all two-axle light duty vehicles without distinction of the date of registration, since the references changed for vehicles registered before January 1, 2013 .
Another difference that was reconciled has to do with the debt of $ 3 trillion in social security payments that transporters have with the Pension and Parafiscal Management Unit (UGPP) since 2013, when the contributions were made mandatory. Drivers will now have the possibility to reach a payment agreement with the entity and get up to date by being exonerated of up to 80% of penalties and late payment interests.
Truckers know that stopping the country is the infallible formula. The last major strike, which lasted 46 days in 2016, pressured then-President Juan Manuel Santos to end the charter system and maintain the restriction on the entry of additional trucks, among other measures, since the losses already exceeded $ 2 , 6 billion. This time the effect has been stronger, as they joined with the National Committee of the Unemployment, the indigenous minga and other calls.
But blocking the tracks is what they colloquially call a shot in the foot, since the first affected is precisely the cargo sector. This has led the other unions in the activity to reject the demonstrations and protest methods of independent truckers.
Colfecar asked the Public Force for support to open the roads and escort truckers in caravans, especially in Valle del Cauca, Cundinamarca, Nariño and the Eje Cafetero, where some drivers have been victims of acts of aggression, theft and looting. In the same position is Fedetranscarga, a union that said that the sector is experiencing a critical situation on behalf of a very small group of transporters that takes advantage of the situation to request “all kinds of things.”
“We are not stopping the vehicles and we are not going to stop, because as businessmen we have obligations to comply with the load generator and with the country, but it has been our turn. We have a very serious problem because everything is blocked even though people want to go out to work. Our negotiations with the Government are always agreed and discussed at a table, on the policy of tolls and the price of gasoline, for example, and things have been taken forward, because progress is not made by stopping the country, “said Henry Cárdenas, president by Fedetranscarga.
Balance of losses
According to the Logistics and Transportation Center, where the country’s supply is constantly monitored, from May 4 to 12 (most recent figures) 1,270,400 tons and 47,605,892 gallons of merchandise were mobilized in 108,728 trips.
Only on May 13, 4,935 vehicles with 34,021 tons of food, 428,379 gallons of fuel and 915 tons of supplies from the health sector were reported arriving at their destination.
However, a shortage situation is still reported, mainly of acpm, in Valle del Cauca, Cali, Cauca, Popayán, Nariño, Pasto, Caquetá, Risaralda and Quindío, and of gasoline in Nariño, Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Popayán, Putumayo , Mocoa and Arauca. Other products have been added to the list, such as those used by the Bogotá Aqueduct and Sewerage Company to make water drinkable.
The Logistics and Transportation Center highlighted that since the installation of the supply table and with the support of the Red Cross, 3,062 vehicles containing 122,480 tons of drugs, oxygen and dialysis equipment have been mobilized.
Within the framework of the work tables, 308 windows were generated, with a cut-off to May 13, to allow the movement of dammed cargo, mainly in the southwestern part of the country, where almost 4,000 vehicles passed with more than 157,000 tons of merchandise. This allowed, for example, the mobilization of 5,720 tons of food to Popayán, 428,379 gallons of fuel to Valle del Cauca and the passage of 49 vehicles with medicines to Nariño.
The opening of two critical points for the mobilization of cargo in the country was also achieved: San Alberto, Cesar, where there is a record of approximately 1,500 mobilized vehicles, and Buga, Valle del Cauca, where the passage of about 140 vehicles was achieved. .
