A5 rest stop
Unionists support drivers from Eastern Europe
Truck drivers are on strike at the Gräfenhausen service area in southern Hesse – on Easter Sunday even with Easter candles. photo
© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa
Goulash cannon and grilled sausages at the motorway service area – trade unionists supported striking Eastern European long-distance drivers with a solidarity campaign on Easter Sunday. It’s about outstanding wages.
A strike by Eastern European truck drivers, who are demanding outstanding wages from their Polish customer, continued on Easter Sunday at a motorway service area in southern Hesse. Around 50 truck drivers have been on strike there for days. They are supported by the Fair Mobility Advisory Network and German trade unionists.
But also passing drivers show their solidarity with the drivers, who come mainly from Georgia and Uzbekistan. A dpa reporter observed how a family handed the drivers at the Gräfenhausen service area on the A5 several kilograms of pasta and a pallet of tomato sauce, wished them a happy Easter and drove on waving. There was also Easter bread and candles.
It was less peaceful on Friday when the Polish trucking company owner arrived with a security company and a camera team and tried to repossess his trucks. A large-scale police operation prevented a violent confrontation with the martially dressed security guards. There were almost 20 arrests.
The freight forwarder and the security guards are now free again. They are accused in varying degrees of serious breach of the peace, coercion, threats, attempted dangerous bodily harm and disruption of a meeting.
Verdi supports with diesel
There shouldn’t be any other incidents: “The police are permanently on site and patrol,” said a representative of the Verdi union of the German Press Agency. He came with a hose and fuel, as several drivers were now running low on diesel and could no longer run the auxiliary heating at night. “They’re freezing in their cabins.”
There was also encouragement for the drivers from politics. “We as the SPD parliamentary group stand in solidarity with the truck drivers who are affected by exploitation and miserable working conditions and who are striking solely for justice and fair working conditions,” said Günther Rudolph, parliamentary group leader of the SPD in the Hessian state parliament, on Sunday. “What happened on Friday cannot be put up with by a constitutional state.”
“There shouldn’t be such paramilitary actions,” said Rhineland-Palatinate Labor and Social Affairs Minister Alexander Schweitzer (SPD), who visited the strikers on Sunday when trade unionists organized a barbecue for the striking drivers late on Sunday afternoon. “The mood is good. We are very happy about so much support,” said one of the drivers.
Meanwhile, the drivers’ petition to the Polish haulage company’s clients has started to bear fruit, said Edwin Atema of the European Transport Workers’ Union, who has been appointed mediator by the strikers. “First companies have said that they stopped working together when they found out about the working conditions.” While this is a first success, Atema said he hopes the companies will now use their leverage to enforce driver pay.