Mexico: Some 65,000 Union Members to Protest Double Trailers

Tens of thousands of Mexican union members are scheduled to demonstrate against “the foolishness of the head of the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT), Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, (decision) not to withdraw double-trailer trucks that have claimed dozens of lives in accidents.”

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“There are many reasons and that is why this Tuesday, we appreciate the understanding and collaboration of our members and above all the understanding of the citizenship for the inconvenience that we are going to cause them, because it is not possible that our worthy work is the most necessary and less paid,” Amotac state coordinator, Raul Torres Mendoza, said.

President of the Mexican Alliance of Organization of Transporters (Amotac), Rafael Ortiz Pacheco, added that about 65,000 union members will participate in the protest. The Amotac chief announced that a letter was sent to President Enrique Peña Nieto, to inform him about the effect on the union that the “special permits” granted to cargo companies by Ruiz Esparza has caused.

“However, President Peña Nieto has ignored,” the Amotac president added. Ortiz Pacheco will meet SCT undersecretary, Yuriria Mascott, to follow up on Amotac's demands.

Ortiz Pacheco has asked for the revocation of permits granted to the heavy-duty vehicles to use the roadway as well as accusing the SCT of “irresponsibly issuing special permits” for those trailer trucks to operate on the federal highways.

So far, this year, there have been multiple accidents, one involving an extended trailer exploding after being overturned. In another incident more serious accident, a double-trailer “caused an 8-hour fire which burned at 1,000 degrees Celcius on a highway.”

Ortiz Pacheco said that drivers “are fed up with the arbitrariness of the federal government, since the hazardous vehicles, as well as the constant national increases to gasoline and diesel prices, has directly affected the livelihood of the carriers, since fuel is the raw material with which they work.”

A further disagreement from Amotac members, Ortiz Pacheco related, is the reclassification of highways, leaving all federal highways toll-free.

The protesters will depart at 10:00 a.m. from Periferico and Matehuala highway to the offices of the Federal Police and the Ministry of Communications and Transportation and Avenida Industrias, respectively.

The slogan of the mass demonstration is “We are ready.”

Amotac state coordinator, Torres Mendoza, announced that the workers will strike against increases in the prices, the rise of toll booths, road conditions and insecurity.

"We demand security on the roads of the country, because here in San Luis Potosí in a day and in a few hours there was the theft of three trucks, without any authority acting on it," Torres Mendoza, said.