MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chilean truckers strike 48 hours to demand fuel relief

Despite Chilean President Michelle Bachelet's announcement of a one billion US dollars subsidy boost, Chile's Confederation of Truck Drivers, CNDC, said that demands for fuel tax relief have not been met.

Thousands of truck drivers across Chile consequently parked their trucks on highway shoulder, commencing a 48 hour work stoppage. "Sixty thousand truckers should be immobilized" CNDC President Juan Araya said on Radio Cooperativa on Tuesday. "Many are going to stop in their garages or in their houses. Some are going to leave the highways, others won't". On Tuesday, big rigs lined major highways from Arica in the north to Puerto Montt in the south. The CNDC had agreed not to block traffic, allowing bus lines to operate normally. However, the strike in Ancud Region temporarily cut off routes to Chiloé in Region X, and 80 truckers in Puerto Montt halted all public transport other than collective taxis and certain minibus routes. Every form of transportation in parts of Chinquihie stopped completely. Five hundred truckers in Iquique, located in Region II, impeded miners from getting to work. Chilean truckers threatened a national strike last Wednesday after their petition to the Finance Ministry went unanswered. The trucking union had demanded the elimination of the 25% fuel tax, which rises with inflation, that pushed transport costs up by 50% as global fuel prices skyrocketed to over US$130 a barrel last week. Truckers in Region VIII had gone on standstill before the national strike, which compelled President Bachelet to demand a resolution from her committee. Arica and Valparaíso truckers also pulled off earlier this week. As a compromise, Bachelet on Monday announced to boost the nearly tapped-out Fund for Price Stabilization of Combustible Fuels (FEPC) by US$1 billion, which would subsidize a liter of gas by Chilean Pesos 50 (12 US cents). The truckers, whose taxes hover at about CP$52 per liter and rising, said the flat-subsidy proposal was insufficient and followed through with the national walkout. Government spokesman Francisco Vidal called the trucker's strike "unjust," claiming that President Bachelet's plan is "a much more efficient subsidy than a tax rebate," since the specific tax percentage will be irrelevant if international prices continue to rise. "The government has to act on the needs of the country as a whole--not those of a specific sector, whether or not that sector is also helped," Vidal said. "We ultimately believe that it is an unjust strike. We only hope that this strike, which is immobilizing part of the country, more than 60,000 truckers, ends as soon as possible." Though former National Renovation Party (RN) presidential hopeful Sebastian Piñera supports the truckers' cause for fuel tax relief, he says the country bears "enormous costs" from the trucking union's immobilization. "What the government announced means that the price of gas is going to lower by CP$50 pesos. But at the same time, since it's the same government that had implemented the gas tax of more than CP$300 pesos, then there is clearly a contradiction," Piñera told Radio Digital FM. He said that a more definitive solution "would be to reduce the specific taxes on fuels, but the trucker strike is not the most fitting method to meet their demands. The way of expressing yourself in democracy is with ideas, with arguments. I'm never going to agree with expressing myself by using violence or being lawless because, in the end, the truckers' strike means enormous costs to the country." The Santiago Times