‘Truck driver is not stupid and knows how to calculate’, says representative about new aid

The approval of the PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) that creates an aid of R$ 1,000 for truck drivers and a benefit of R$ 200 for taxi drivers, enacted by Congress on Thursday (14), divides the opinions of workers and representatives of the two categories.

While for some the measure helps to balance revenue losses, for others it has an electoral character and camouflages a bigger problem: the rise in fuel prices.

The measure releases the payment of five installments of the benefit for self-employed truck drivers registered until May 31 at the RNTRC (National Registry of Road Cargo Transporters). However, the payment method still needs regulation.

Taxi drivers registered until May 31, 2022 will be entitled to BRL 200 per month after regulating the form of payment, according to an official statement from the Ministry of Citizenship. You will need to present the permission document.

Wallace Landim, known as Chorão – one of the main leaders of the 2018 truck drivers’ strike – says that the creation of a voucher is an electoral measure and an early attempt by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to “buy votes” from the category.

“But the truck driver is not stupid and knows how to calculate”, he says. The amount of R$ 1,000 is negligible for professionals who work in road freight transport and only benefit drivers of light vehicles, he says.

“What we ask of the federal government is that they have the responsibility and the courage to withdraw the PPI [Preço de Paridade de Importação] and that the responsible regulatory agency enforce law 13,703. That would really help the category.”

Law 13,703, enacted in August 2018, after the strike of the category that stopped the country, institutes a national policy of the Minimum Floor for Freight.

A self-employed truck driver for 17 years, Salvador Edmilson Carneiro, 51, says the measure does not help the category and is only trying to mask the soaring price of diesel. A resident of Riachão do Jacuípe, in the metropolitan region of Feira de Santana, in Bahia, he says that he had to pull over the truck, because with a liter of diesel at R$ 7.40 it is no longer paying to carry out freight.

“Most truck drivers will break down and help is no use, R$ 1,000 a month for someone who spends R$ 2,000 a day just on diesel is not enough.”

Autonomous truck driver and director of CNTTL (National Confederation of Transport and Logistics Workers), Carlos Alberto Litti Dahmer says that the benefit does not solve the problem of truck drivers and that the measure has only political interests.

“This is ridiculous, truck drivers don’t need alms. We need to solve the fuel price problem, giving dignity not only to truck drivers, but also to the rest of the population. Giving R$ 0.30 reduction in the price of diesel means much more than R$ 1,000 monthly”, he says.

Aid will postpone leaving the profession

President of ANTB (Brazilian National Transport Association), José Roberto Stringasci is against the proposal that establishes a temporary benefit for truck drivers and says he never imagined that the category would, one day, need a government benefit to work.

However, he says that the value will be useful to give a survival to workers who are leaving the profession due to the high price of fuel.

“There are many broken drivers, almost stopping work. For some of them, this money will help. It will be the lifeline until December”, he says. “But in January, if you cut the benefit, it is very likely that he will stop working.”

Stringasci says that this is the worst moment experienced by the category and believes that a change in fuel price policy could be a solution. Although useful for some, the truck driver’s voucher of R$ 1,000 would not be enough to balance expenses, says the association’s president.

He calculates that the truck driver traveling on average travels 600 kilometers per day and that the daily consumption of the truck is around 300 liters of diesel oil. “If we consider the price of a liter of diesel at R$ 7, that’s R$ 2,100 a day. Then, it comes with an aid of R$ 1,000, it’s almost a joke.”

For taxi drivers, benefit should reduce expenses

The president of SindiTaxi (São Paulo Taxi Drivers Union), Luiz Carlos Capelo, says that anything that comes to improve the financial situation of taxi drivers is well accepted.

For 40 years as a taxi driver, Capelo also says that the current moment is one of the worst for professionals in the field, due to competition with app drivers and illegal drivers, in addition to the price of fuel.

“We’ve been through crises before, but never of this magnitude. Nowadays, it costs R$ 245 to fill the tank of a 40-liter car with gasoline. fuel a day.”

In addition to aid for taxi drivers, PEC Kamikase provides for the transfer of funds to avoid price increases in public transport and subsidies for ethanol.

Driver Alecsandro Reis Balbino, 49, who says he is one of the few licensed taxi drivers in the municipality of São Gonçalo do Sapucaí, in the south of Minas Gerais, is in favor of the new aid.

With 28 years in the profession, he believes that the category faces great difficulty with the high price of fuel and with the competition with drivers who work inside and outside the applications.

“The way we [taxistas] is today, whatever comes will be welcome. There are a lot of illegal drivers and the competition is unfair. So, if this benefit doesn’t come, it will be difficult to work.”

There are also those who disagree with the release of the benefit. A taxi driver for three years, driver Henrique Ribeiro de Souza, 39, says he is against the measure that creates the taxi-valley and that leaves out many other categories of workers.

“It’s a totally populist action. But, we have to think about what this money represents. For me, it represents a shut up so we don’t complain about expensive milk and expensive gasoline.”