[wisconsin_cur]

The story makes the American Media

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')cross Spain, about 70,000 truckers joined the strike Monday, according to Desiree Paseiro, a representative of a truckers’ association that is threatening to paralyze the country unless the government introduces measures to lower fuel bills.

The strike has alarmed many people, who already have begun lining up at gas stations and supermarkets for fear that supplies will be cut. Wholesale food markets like Mercamadrid stocked up on fish and meat over the weekend so their stalls would not be left bare.

On Monday morning, groups of slow-moving trucks blocked the major highways that surround Madrid in a so-called snail protest that snarled traffic. Some food distributors fear that their trucks will not be allowed to roll.

“We are the ones who move the merchandise that this country needs to function,” Julio Villascusa, a truckers’ representative, told the Cadena Ser radio station on the eve of the strike. “If we don’t have the money to keep buying fuel to offer this public service, well, then, this country comes to a halt.”

Spanish truckers say the price of diesel, which varies among European countries, was the equivalent of $7.73 per gallon, compared with $5.58 per gallon a year ago. At that price, they argue, it costs them more to buy fuel than they earn from trucking contracts.

Prices at the pump could continue to climb, according to Jeffrey Currie, the global chief of commodities research at Goldman Sachs. At an oil and gas conference in Malaysia on Monday, he said that oil prices were likely to hit $150 a barrel this summer, surpassing the record of $139.12 set last Friday, Reuters reported.

Spain has been particularly hard hit as soaring fuel prices coincide with the sharpest economic retreat in 15 years. The Spanish government has so far offered loans to the industry, composed principally of small businesses.

[virgincrude]

Wisconsin_cur: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hank you for giving us the facts on the ground. Is there any Spanish precedent for the government to order the truckers back to work in the event that some places started to experience shortages?

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('virgincrude', 'W')isconsin_cur: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hank you for giving us the facts on the ground. Is there any Spanish precedent for the government to order the truckers back to work in the event that some places started to experience shortages?

[Peleg]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DantesPeak', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JPL', 'F')rance here.
I can confirm this story, I have a mate who is a trans-European trucker & talked to him this-morning.
Word from the inside is that the protest is going Europe-wide 'some time soon'. The aim will be to force governments across the EU to cut fuel taxes for all sectors.
Off now to fill the jerry cans...
JP

[virgincrude]

There's no doubt this is leading to some interesting developments. yesterday Daimler-Chrysler's factory in Victoria (Northern Spain) closed due to lack of parts to make cars. The famous 'Just in Time' system, collapsed.

Today, the news is that the country's largest car maker Seat will not be making 1,400 vehicles today, because the paint and mounting area of the production line have runout of supplies. Mercedes Benz factory has also stopped the morning shift today. Out of every 10 cars made in Spain today, 8 are exported.

I'm thinking it would be no bad thing generally for this strike to go on until the weekend, when shortages in supplies would bite. People may wake up, they'll be pissed and start asking questions and preparing for the next time. But it would be a necessary wake up call.

Alongside this news in today's national press, there are stories about the Formula One Grand Prize in Canada. The dots are not being connected. This is lunacy!

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'I')f the government cuts fuel taxes then how do they pay for the electric trains?

[grom]

Spanish here too.

I have to say:

- Not every trucker and trucker syndicate is on strike. The small, independent truckers are. The problems caused are due mostly to ilegal coercion and blocking, and not due to the (legal) strike itself. Due to this, I assume if things get a little worse, we will start to see the police actually "policing" instead of only watching, as they are now.

- It seems the trucker's problems are related somehow to the contraction of the infamous "housing bubble" in Spain. The building business is getting smaller, unemployment in the sector is rising, and that affecs also the truckers, which are left with an excess of offer and a lack of the well-paid business they had in the last years.
Of course you have to add the rocketing price of oil to thier costs, and you will have the whole picture.

- Where I live you can see some shelves empty in supermarkets, and in some stations the CHEAP gas is gone, they still have the higher quality-gas, a little more expensive. Some stations have everything and there are queues some times.

- My point of view, it is just another strike. In Spain we have this curious mentality, if a strike do not bother and anger the general populace, it is basically useless. So, they are trying to do that.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')panish transport infrastructure is third-world, pushing you to take the highway. It would be a disaster in times of real crisis. (I don't think this is, it is just another manifestation of stupid economics.) Not only that, but the Spanish rail gauge is not European standard. Franco bought his tracks cheap from Russia.

[portuga]

hey i´m portuguese, and yesterday i went to the supermerket and everything was ok... today is a national holiday and i haven´t been out but in the news they´re saying that some fuel stations are already out of diesel and some supermarkets have lines of people outside, perishable goods will be gone by tomorrow... Thousands of liters of milk are at risk of being thrown away because the producers can´t store it and they only can rest for 12hrs inside the tankers before being packed. first glimpse at the future collapse?
although i am a doomer myself, even i am amazed at how fast panic settled in, it took just one day of strike to first shortages appear... so at least here in portugal were just as dependent on "just in time" delivery as the states

[Karlos4]

Hi grom. Nice to see there are more spaniards here, even long time members.
I agree this is just a strike, not apocalypse. But IMO is among the first of several adjustements our society is going to have to get used to. People here are easy on the panic button. They even did compulsive shopping back in '91, because of the first Gulf War! That has to change.

[virgincrude]

grom: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')llow me to disagree, I travelled by train in several countries of Europe, and Spanish network is on par. Of course there are good and very bad examples within Spain, but go travel by train in England, if you survive, then you can come and compare with Spain.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hat do the strikers hope to accomplish?

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n the US this type of strike is pretty rare, because these types of tradespeople no longer recognize the power of collective action, and are not willing to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others. They are in it to get their own, and to hell with everybody else.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') truck driver was run over and killed by a van Tuesday as he was working on a picket line in southern Spain during a strike by hauliers protesting high fuel prices, police said.
The incident occurred at the entrance to a wholesale market in Grenada Tuesday evening, a police official in the city told AFP.

Earlier Tuesday, a Portuguese driver was killed near Alcanena, north of Lisbon, as he tried to stop a lorry at a road block set up by the strikers, police said.
Strikes launched Monday by truckers in Spain, France and Portugal have caused mounting chaos, with food and fuel shortages and huge tailbacks on the Spanish-French border.

[cube]

I have a question for anyone in Europe.

Does society support these truckers? Do they feel sympathy?
or
Is society getting annoyed and angry at these truckers?

BTW in the USA this would not work. Americans tend to have zero patience for anyone who would dare try to block traffic on purpose. We would consider such a protest to be an act of extortion.
Protesters in America usually try to resort to public sympathy rather than try to "flex their muscles".

[basil_hayden]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'B')TW in the USA this would not work. Americans tend to have zero patience for anyone who would dare try to block traffic on purpose. We would consider such a protest to be an act of extortion.
Protesters in America usually try to resort to public sympathy rather than try to "flex their muscles".

[virgincrude]

cube; $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')oes society support these truckers? Do they feel sympathy?
or
Is society getting annoyed and angry at these truckers?

[Tuike]

Here's some doomer porn at guardian.co.uk website.

Fuel protest: shortages, death and arrests hit Spain

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')upermarket shelves were running empty, panic-buying at petrol stations continued, ferries to the mainland were stopped due to a lack of fuel, and three car companies, Seat, Nissan and Mercedes Benz, suspended operations because they had not been able to get vital parts. Fresh products such fish, eggs, milk and yoghurt were in shortest supply. Two wholesale markets, Mercamadrid, in Madrid, and Mercabarna, in Barcelona, reported deliveries were below normal. In Barcelona, at a branch of the Caprabo supermarket, there was no fresh fish or meat.

[grom]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ere's some doomer porn at guardian.co.uk website

[virgincrude]

As expected, the police have finally been let off the leash and have been arresting and rounding up truckers who refused to move their vehicles from blocking major highways. The minister of the interior said they would continue to use heavy handed (not sure how to translate 'contundente') and serious measures to stop pickets preventing the free movement of goods. The arrests were mainly in Madrid, where the local Conservative government maintain trace elements of fascism: i.e the local police are well practiced in beating up innocent bystanders.

The death yesterday has totally changed the mood. Not to mention the probable deliberate burning of a bunch of trucks, one guy was sleeping inside the cabin and had to be rescued, he's in hospital now with 25% burns: very few people are now willing to 'understand' the truckers basic demands, which the government is refusing to grant them, i.e a minimum tariff. This of course would interfere with the Glorious Free Market. The truckers union on the other hand, is blaming Zapatero for the death of the guy who refused to stop at the behest of a picket.

Dead-lock in the negotiations means we're probably looking at a weekend solution which means I should have bought eggs yesterday! Police escorted gas tankers into the city today to guarrantee supplies, the local stations have plenty of high grade unleaded, but most ran out of the run of the mill stuff most of us use. Diesel was first to go.

It will take 48 hours after the strike is called off, for provisions in the stores to get back to normal. Fresh milk is being poured down the drains, since nobody is coming to collect it. Fruit growers are storming regional government buildings, throwing fruit around in protest, it's all piled up in the warehouses and no trucks are coming to fetch it. It's heartbreaking to see the local plastic greenhouses all around here filled to the brim with ripe ready produce and nobody plucking it. My local superstores are totally out of chicken, but generally there's plenty of food on the shelves.

Loved that Guardian report! So hysterical, it paints a picture of the average Spaniard running around in a state of panic. Just about fits the British stereotype of those smelly mediterranean types.

[SoylentGreen]

I dont think turban's will ever catch on in the states. I guess the guys who ride in front get to eat bugs for free too?