Confederation of self-employed truck drivers avoids strike and continues to bet on dialogue

The CNTA (National Confederation of Autonomous Transporters), an entity that claims to represent 850,000 truck drivers in the country, maintained this Thursday (23) a position against carrying out a national strike, a position that has been defended for months by segments of the category that cite successive increases in diesel prices.

Citing the research contracted by the entity in five points of the country, including the Port of Santos, and carried out between April 4 and 18 with a thousand truck drivers, the CNTA’s executive advisor, Marlon Maues, told journalists that “unfortunately, even today, in WhatsApp groups you talk about people who have never represented truck drivers”.

According to him, despite the successive increases in fuel prices in recent months, a strike call for the category is seen as a “last resort”, since the entity continues to find dialogue with the federal government.

“A strike is the last resort for any category to file demands. As long as there is consistent open dialogue, the strike as it happened in 2018 should be the last resort,” Maues said. “On that occasion there was adhesion of transport companies, bus companies and agribusiness”, he added.

The survey released by the CNTA this Thursday states that almost half (45%) of the category is not aware of the legislation that created the table of minimum freight floors, the main victory of the strike movement in May 2018 that paralyzed the country for about ten years. days and which was supported by the then presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro.

“What we see today about the autonomous truck driver is a technical stoppage, with him no longer able to supply the truck because of successive increases. While other actors still have room to deal with this”, said Maues.

Truckers in Argentina held strikes this week in protest over diesel prices and shortages. In Brazil, the federal government discussed this week an initiative to grant truck drivers an allowance of R$ 400, something that was considered a “disrespect” by the CNTTL (National Confederation of Transport and Logistics Workers).

The CNTTL spokesman, Carlos Alberto Litti Dahmer, stated in a video distributed over the internet that the value of the allowance is equivalent to just 58 liters of fuel. “What will the truck driver do with 58 liters of diesel when his monthly consumption is much higher? defending the end of Petrobras’ price parity with the international market.

This Thursday, the government leader in the Senate, Carlos Portinho (PL-RJ), stated that the so-called “truck voucher” could reach R$ 1,000 per month.

Maues, from CNTA, acknowledged that laws such as the freight table, which aims to create a trigger to readjust transport values ​​when there are increases in fuel prices, “are not being put into practice”, but cited other benefits obtained by category.

“We had a situation in 2018 in which there was not even a support from these laws. The rights did not exist… Since then, the truck driver, despite not knowing his rights, won rights”, said Maues when asked about the differences in category positions in 2018 and more recently.

The CNTA representative also mentioned, as benefits for the category in recent months, legislation to encourage the renewal of the fleet of trucks, flexibilization of load weighing on the roads, non-charging of suspended axle in tolls, toll vouchers and reduction of taxes on tires imported.

“We believe that there have been changes, but this has not yet directly reflected this pain that truck drivers suffer on a daily basis.”