The association of road transport companies Asemtra has decided to suspend the indefinite strike that had begun this Monday throughout the Canary Islands to demand that they be released from the use of the tachograph on the islands, after the sector in Santa Cruz de Tenerife had withdrawn.
The strike was celebrating its second day this Tuesday, but only on the islands of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, because the transporters of Tenerife, La Palma, El Hierro and La Gomera had agreed not to continue with it so as not to harm the banana sector.
In a statement released this afternoon, Asemtra explains that in the assemblies held in the last hours in the province of Las Palmas, the companies have also decided to suspend the strike, after the commitments made by the Government of the Canary Islands in the meeting that the sector held on Monday with its president, Ángel Víctor Torres.
The first of these consists, recalls the employers, in “convening a meeting with the Government of the Balearic Islands within 15 days to jointly study the possibilities of requesting from the ministries with powers in the matter of tachograph regulations the adaptation to the particularities of the archipelagos”.
The Canarian Government had also announced that it would arrange a “technical meeting” with the Ministry of Transport “to address the possibilities of regulatory modification in the field of tachographs”.
In addition, says the transport employers, “the political groups that support the Canarian Government will present a resolution proposal in the Parliament of the Canary Islands to seek consensus among all groups in order to continue advancing in the studies that allow adapting the tachograph to the island reality”.
Likewise, the Executive will commission a specialized consultant to prepare “a report that analyzes and evaluates the technical and configuration possibilities of the tachograph in the islands, respecting road safety and the rights of workers”.
Finally, the transporters say that there is a commitment to study “the adaptation of the amount of transport sanctions to the current inflationary situation and the size of the economy in the Canary Islands”.
The Government of the Canary Islands has repeatedly responded to the transporters that exempting the sector from the use of the tachograph on the islands, as it demands, is a decision that exceeds its competence, while the majority unions have threatened to call mobilizations if this request is granted, because they fear that it will lead to abuses in the duration of the working day and the regulation of drivers' rest periods.
