carrier free again
Truck drivers continue to strike at the A5 service area
04/09/2023, 7:10 p.m
At a rest stop in southern Hesse, Eastern European truck drivers have been on strike for days because they say they are not being paid wages. The Polish forwarder sets off with a security company – they all end up in German police custody. Politicians and trade unions show solidarity.
A strike by Eastern European truck drivers, who are demanding outstanding wages from their Polish customer, continues at a motorway service station 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 family stopped at the Gräfenhausen service area on the A5 and brought the drivers several kilograms of pasta and a pallet of tomato sauce. 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. There shouldn’t be any other incidents: “The police are permanently on site and patrol,” said a representative of the Verdi union. 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.”
The first companies are terminating the forwarder
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. “What happened on Friday cannot be put up with by a constitutional state.”
“There shouldn’t be such paramilitary actions,” said the Rhineland-Palatinate Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Alexander Schweitzer, 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.