Striking truckers who have already twice plunged the country into fuel-shortage chaos this year face an extraordinary attack by public prosecutors.
The syndicate of drivers of dangerous materials (SNMMP) – due to mount further strike action next week – has been told it isn’t legal, and must therefore be disbanded.
Say reports, it’s a challenge that is ‘highly unusual’. Even so, it is unlikely to have any kind of effect on the strike announced from September 7-22, as the bid will still require ratification through the courts.
But if successful, it would throw a major spanner in the works, bearing in mind truck drivers have never had the kind of voice, or clout, achieved by this particular syndicate which only formed last November.
Commenting on the development, lawyer and former syndicate spokesperson Pedro Pardal Henriques – almost certainly the reason for the syndicate being declared illegal (as he has no previous connections to the truck driving sector) – told journalists: “This is a clear attack on voices that rise up against corruption”.
One of the beefs of truck drivers during this dispute has been the allegation that employers avoid taxes by keeping baseline salaries artificially low.
For now, public prosecutors’ tactics are untried. The next few weeks will decide whether or not they are acceptable.
The syndicate itself has told reporters that its Statutes allow for associates to hail from different sectors. The public ministry sees it differently.
Says Observador, “doubts on the eligibility of Pedro Pardal Henriques being associated with a syndicate are not new”.
At the beginning of the month, the committee setting up to create another syndicate – the syndicate of security guards of Portugal – complained that it was being blocked by the authorities, and was told this was precisely because it had chosen Pedro Pardal Henriques to be part of its constituent assembly.
Pedro Pardal Henriques is a lawyer who has since removed himself from spokesperson duties for the SNMMP on the basis that he will be fighting the upcoming legislative elections for the PDR (democratic republican) party (click here).
