Feets, don't fail me now
Jul. 28th, 2010 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularTransport truck drivers are on strike in Greece. This one, unlike many of the others, may have a lasting severe impact.
No fuel's being delivered. Food's not getting from Point A to Point B, and markets can't get fresh resupplies. There's talk that the Army may have to take over transport duties.
The reasoning behind the strike? By the old rules, only a limited number of transport licenses were given out - I think the last new batch was issued in the mid-eighties or so - and ever since, the only way to get a license was to buy it off of someone who was getting out of the business. It cost a mint - a lot of people treated it as equivalent to buying a house - and the current drivers are complaining that opening up the profession, issuing new licenses at much lower rates, will destroy the investments they made in their licenses back when it was a closed profession. So until the government decides to reconsider, the transport drivers are not going to do any transporting of anything.
There have apparently been major runs on gasoline, and long-distance buses are in jeopardy. And if the ferry boats can't get fuel?
Basically, because the EU says that transport trucks can't be a closed profession, and the Greek government can't afford to cheese off the EU any more at this point, the transport drivers' union has decided to kneecap the entire economy.
Real [censored] mature.
No fuel's being delivered. Food's not getting from Point A to Point B, and markets can't get fresh resupplies. There's talk that the Army may have to take over transport duties.
The reasoning behind the strike? By the old rules, only a limited number of transport licenses were given out - I think the last new batch was issued in the mid-eighties or so - and ever since, the only way to get a license was to buy it off of someone who was getting out of the business. It cost a mint - a lot of people treated it as equivalent to buying a house - and the current drivers are complaining that opening up the profession, issuing new licenses at much lower rates, will destroy the investments they made in their licenses back when it was a closed profession. So until the government decides to reconsider, the transport drivers are not going to do any transporting of anything.
There have apparently been major runs on gasoline, and long-distance buses are in jeopardy. And if the ferry boats can't get fuel?
Basically, because the EU says that transport trucks can't be a closed profession, and the Greek government can't afford to cheese off the EU any more at this point, the transport drivers' union has decided to kneecap the entire economy.
Real [censored] mature.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-28 02:15 pm (UTC)Haven't seen anything in the news here (US) about this yet, so your post is the first I've heard that this is going on now.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-28 03:03 pm (UTC)I'm selfishly glad I don't operate a car in Athens and can rely on my feet.