DStriking truck drivers on the A5 are increasing the pressure on companies whose goods they were transporting before the protests began. At a press conference convened at short notice at the Gräfenhausen-West rest area on Friday, they showed freight documents on which a branch of the US company General Electric in Birr, Switzerland, was specified as the recipient.
According to the Dutch trade unionist Edwin Atema, the reason for the action was information from the police, according to which a logistics company was on its way to pick up the trailer with this load. In the late afternoon, a police patrol came to the parking lot and announced that this was no longer expected on Friday but probably on Monday. According to Atema, most of the 62 trucks are empty because the drivers delivered the goods before the protests began.
The majority of truck drivers have been protesting at the rest area for a month because of non-payment. It is said that their Polish clients, the companies of the Mazur Group, have meanwhile transferred almost 200,000 euros. According to the drivers and their supporters from the Fair Mobility Network and the European Transport Workers’ Union, 97,585 euros are still missing. The three transport companies belonging to the group, Lukmaz, Agmaz and Imperia, had informed their lawyer that they had always paid on time.
Atema accused the Polish transport companies of “human trafficking”. In justification, he said the companies were trying to exert “physical coercion” on the drivers. After the sensational attempt by entrepreneur Lukasz Mazur over the Easter weekend to use a Polish security service to pick up the trucks parked at the rest area, there was another incident on Thursday evening: A truck driver from Uzbekistan who wanted to join the protests was in front of Agmaz -Employees “escaped” to a service area.
When asked, the driver concerned reported that he had stopped at the Gräfenhausen-Ost rest area opposite on the way to his striking colleagues. After he was said to have been questioned there by an unknown person, a minibus with the Agmaz logo stopped in front of his truck. According to his own statements, the driver then ran into the rest area and called Atema. He wanted to file a complaint, said the man whose report first had to be translated from Uzbek into Russian and then into German.
The driver, who only wants to read his first name Amirjon in the newspaper, was traveling with goods for the Bauhaus hardware store chain. According to his shipping documents, he had previously also taken on loads for Hornbach and Toom. The papers also show that the companies did not commission the Mazur Group directly, but other freight forwarders.
Unionist Atema spoke of a complicated network of subcontractors. Nevertheless, according to the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, indirect clients also have to assume responsibility, he argued. “What else do you want these drivers to do?”
Ready for hunger strike
At the press conference, one of the truck drivers said he was also ready to go on a hunger strike. Fifty-six-year-old Kaxaberi gave a lengthy speech, which was translated by an employee of the Fair Mobility Network. “He says that if they don’t get their money, they will go on hunger strike and, if necessary, die here in the parking lot,” interpreted Anna Weirich from Fair Mobility.