Reported by: PMOI/MEK
Iran, July 30, 2018 – The truck drivers of Iran put behind the seventh day of their nationwide strike on Sunday. Their strike spans over many of Iran’s major cities, including Isfahan, Shar-e Kord, Mashhad, Qazvin, Urmia, Kazerun, Chalus, Arak, Kermanshah, Baneh, Shiraz, and Tabriz.
At the terminal of Tarq, Isfahan, the Iranian regime’s agents had put several truck tires on sale at lower prices to break the truck drivers’ strike. But the truck drivers ignored the regime’s offers. The regime is also using trucks and organizations tied to the Revolutionary Guards to counter the effects of the truckers’ strike.
In the past seven days, truck drivers from 125 cities and 30 provinces of Iran have joined the strike and stopped their operations.
The expansion of the nationwide strikes
The second wave of nationwide strikes by truck drivers started on July 22nd. Despite the ruses, sabotage, and threats of the Iranian regime, Iran’s truckers decided to start and continue their strike.
In the past days, the Iranian regime has tried to end the strike at any price. In Mashhad, the regime’s agents tried to trick the truck drivers to end their strike by selling them cheap tires. However, Mashhad’s terminal remained empty and no truck driver came to buy tires.
In Sarbandar, Khuzestan, the regime’s officials started using the transportation ministry’s trucks to counter the effects of the nationwide strike. The regime took similar measures in Shar-e Kord. In Kermanshah, the regime’s agents tore off the license plates of truckers’ vehicles to threaten them, but the families of the truckers confronted them.
In Bandar Abbas, the regime tried to infiltrate their own agents among the truckers and normalize the situation.
Iranian opposition NCRI President Maryam Rajavi praised the truckers’ nationwide strike.
Hail to Iran’s truck drivers and their nationwide strike. I urge everyone and especially the youth, to show their solidarity with them. I call on relevant international workers and truck owners’ unions and organizations to lend support to the toiling truck drivers in #Iran.
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) July 25, 2018
Background
The first round of the truck drivers’ strike began back in May and continued for 12 days. Truckers in seven provinces began the strike by refusing to deliver any goods and this movement quickly spread to 274 cities across the country, transforming to a general strike shaking the regime’s corrupt pillars.
This movement brought to a halt a large portion of the country’s transportation network, placing deep impact on the regime’s already fragile economy.
Despite resorting to a variety of pretext and crackdown methods, Iranian regime officials were forced to give into a portion of the drivers’ demands, including a 20 percent rise in load rates, averaging load commission percentages between 12 to 14 percent, and stopping plans to launch tracking measures on the truckers’ commuting.
The drivers’ main demands include increased load rates, retirement rights after 25 years of work experience, taking into consideration the drivers’ harsh working conditions, lowering insurance fees, lowering prices of spare parts, especially tires and oil as the market experiences numerous ups and downs, increasing the drivers’ daily diesel fuel ration, decreasing authorities extortions, including road commissions and further charges upon delivery of goods in ports and load terminals stations to companies owned by influential figures, and stopping all repressive measures by authorities against the drivers.
