A strike by Eastern European truck drivers, who are demanding outstanding wages from their Polish customer, continued over the Easter weekend at the Gräfenhausen motorway service station on the A5 in southern Hesse. Around 50 truck drivers have been on strike there for days. They are supported by the Fair Mobility Advisory Network and German trade unionists. In the conflict, the Polish forwarder apparently also uses intimidation.
Passing drivers also showed their solidarity with the truck drivers, most of whom came from Georgia and Uzbekistan. A dpa reporter observed how a family handed the drivers pasta and a pallet of tomato sauce and drove on waving. There was also Easter bread. “The mood is good. We are very happy about so much support,” said one of the drivers. “We have worked honestly – and we want to continue to do so, for fair wages.”
arrests on Friday
“What happens here in Gräfenhausen can happen anywhere – and we often don’t see it,” said Rhineland-Palatinate Labor Minister Alexander Schweitzer (SPD) during a visit on Sunday. One thing is good about the strike: “Germany is finally taking a look and seeing what’s happening on German streets.” He wanted to use the strike as an opportunity to put working conditions in international freight transport back on the agenda of the conference of labor and social affairs ministers.
It wasn’t very peaceful on Friday when the Polish trucking company owner arrived with a security company and a camera team and tried to take possession of his trucks. The police prevented a violent confrontation with the martially dressed security guards. There were almost 20 arrests.
The freight forwarder and the security guards are now free again. They are accused in varying degrees of serious breach of the peace, coercion, threats, attempted dangerous bodily harm and disruption of a meeting.
The thing with the heaters
There shouldn’t be any other incidents: “The police are permanently on site and patrol,” said a representative of the Verdi union of the German Press Agency. He came with a hose and fuel, as several drivers were now running low on diesel and could no longer run the auxiliary heating at night. “They’re freezing in their cabins.”
There was also encouragement for the drivers, for example, from the SPD in the Hessian state parliament. Group leader Günther Rudolph said on Sunday: “What happened on Friday cannot be put up with by a constitutional state.”
Meanwhile, the drivers’ petition to the Polish haulage company’s clients is starting to have some success, said Edwin Atema of the European Transport Workers’ Union, who has been appointed mediator by the strikers. “First companies have said that they stopped working together when they found out about the working conditions.” While this is a first success, Atema said he hopes the companies will now use their leverage to enforce driver pay.
The attempt to intimidate the drivers was not the first. “There were also protests by small groups of drivers at other rest areas in Germany, for example in Garbsen near Hanover,” said Atema. After being intimidated, they left the rest areas, and some came to Gräfenhausen to continue. Others came from a strike action in Italy. “The police didn’t do anything against the thugs there, unlike here.”
