MADRID (AFP) — Spanish fishermen and truck drivers stepped up their national strike against rising fuel prices Sunday, staging direct action to disrupt public events.
In the morning, truck drivers in the northeast region of Catalonia launched a go-slow operation on a highway.
That created a three-kilometre (two-mile) tailback on the way to the Montmelo racetrack where the Catalan Motorcycle Grand Prix was taking place, said local officials.
Fishermen in Spain have been on an indefinite strike since May 30, while truckers began rolling out a parallel protest on Friday. A truckers' group calling itself the "Platform for the Defence of the Transport Sector", who say they speak for 50,000 truckers, walked off the job.
They have threatened to disrupt the opening next weekend of the International Exposition in Zaragosa.
Another truckers' association Fenadismer, which says its represents 70,000 out of Spain's 380,000 truck drivers has called a strike from Monday.
The transport ministry meanwhile said it would next week unveil a package to help the transport sector and that its officials would meet with truck drivers on Monday.
"We are in solidarity with the sector and we want to find a solution," the ministry's General Director for Road Transport, Juan Miguel Sanchez, told reporters Sunday.
"All we ask is that they trust in dialogue because striking is not the solution," he added.
The main organisation representing workers in the fishing sector, Cepesca, said Sunday that most of the Spanish fleet was still out on strike.
The strike was even strengthening, Cepesca secretary general Javier Garat told AFP: fishermen from the northwest region of Galicia who had not previously come out, rallying to the action, he said.
Other fishermen in the northern regions of the Basque Country and Cantabria were set to join the action Monday, and Catalan fishermen, who had called off their action on June 2, were Sunday considering rejoining the strike.
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