Peru: Transporters and Other Organizations Plan More Protests
Demostrators in Peru, Oct 2024 Photo: Defensoria Peru
October 17, 2024 Hour: 9:26 pm
The legislature last night approved only a few reforms to the law which, according to Julio Campos, leader of the National Alliance of Transport Workers, do not solve the problem of rampant extortion.
On Thursday, a broad bloc of transport workers, small businessmen and other Peruvian sectors are set to hold a meeting with social organizations from different sectors to join forces and start a national strike on 23 October.
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The preparations were confirmed after Parliament ignored the transporters’ demand to repeal a recently passed law considered favorable to criminal organizations.
Instead, the legislature last night approved only a few reforms to the law which, according to Julio Campos, leader of the National Alliance of Transport Workers, do not solve the problem of rampant extortion and its correlate of contract killings.
Campos, a self-employed driver of interprovincial taxi-collectives, claimed that the government is determined to discredit the movement, which has successfully carried out two 24- and 48-hour stoppages of the service in recent weeks.
In a dialogue with the foreign press, the leader mentioned that official spokespersons refer to the movement as a matter of informal transport workers, like him, and replied that the struggle is for life and the murderers extort and kill without distinguishing between formal and informal.
He pointed out that the protest will be led by the Committee of Transport Guilds, which brings together urban and interprovincial services, passenger and cargo, as well as taxis and even the humble motorbike taxis that operate in poor neighborhoods and whose owners are victims of extortionists.
Also participating in the mobilizations, Campos said, will be newspaper sellers, the mothers of the Vaso de Leche – women’s groups that prepare breakfast for poor children – and residents of poor areas.
As for a sector of transport workers who announced a parallel strike, he said that they are invited to today’s meeting so that they can join the strike planned for the 23rd.
For his part, the president of the Comité de Defensa por la Vida (Committee for the Defense of Life) of the large textile production and trade center in the Gamarra neighborhood, Carlos Choque, said that on the appointed date the local businessmen will close their doors and hold marches.
On the other hand, the demand for public safety will be included in the day of marches planned for today by the General Confederation of Workers to demand a decent increase in the official minimum wage.
In addition, the Unitary Union of Education Workers of Peru (Sutep) began a series of marches yesterday in Lima and the Amazonian region of Iquitos, the northern region of Tumbes and the southern regions of Ica and Arequipa for the fulfilment of collective agreements with the government for wage improvements which, they claim, the government is not complying with.
The marches point to a national strike that Sutep will begin on 21 October if their demands are not met, said the union’s secretary general, Lucio Castro.