Truck-drivers spearhead Chile strike

Press, 25 June 1983, Page 10

Truck-drivers spearhead Chile strike

NZPA Santiago Thousands of . truckdrivers went on strike yesterday in a protest against the military Government of General Augusto Pinochet, but most other Chileans appeared to have ignored Opposition calls for a national strike. Some ports were closed and long-distance shipments of food and other goods were largely halted in the 4250 km-long Andean country. Adolfo Quinteros, president of the Truck Owners’ Association, said that 70 per cent of the 46,000 ownerdrivers did not drive their vehicles yesterday. There were protests by university students, isolated strikes by bus drivers and coal-miners, and activity at some copper-mines remained hampered by strikes begun by miners last week. But the labour situation in the capital, Santiago, and the rest of the country appeared mostly normal. The strike was called by a coalition of unions, to demand the release of 21 jailed leaders of the Copper Workers’ Confederation and discussions between the government and Opposition union and political leaders. The Opposition wants to loosen the Government's monetarist economic policies and begin a transition to democracy.

Union leaders said that they hoped the strike would grow as stores ran out of goods. Almost all long-dis-tance hauling of merchandise is by truck; a strike led by truck-drivers in 1972 was a key factor in the social chaos that led to the overthrow of the Leftist Government of Salvador Allende Gossens by General Pinochet in 1973. But the strike efforts have been hampered by reinforced censorship. Editors at newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations said in interviews that they had been told by Interior Ministry officials that reports on the strike call and Opposition political activity were forbidden. At least one radio station, Radio Cooperative, challenged the ministry yesterday by broadcastings reports from overseas on what was being said about the strike. Broadsheets put out by students and the copper-workers were also circulating yesterday, but their numbers were small. “How can be strike if all we have are rumours to go on,” said a fishmonger at the bustling central market in Santiago yesterday morning. But the failure of the strike to generate momen-

turn appeared also to reflect the hesitancy of workers to follow their union leaders at the risk of losing their jobs. Politically motivated strikes are illeagal, unemployment is 20 per cent, and winter is setting in. “We will go out when the others go,” said a local-haul truck-driver at a Santiago terminal that was running at half its capacity. “No work, no eat,” another truck-driver said. There was no way to measure the moral support for the strike, but it appeared widespread judging by conversations with Chileans in a tour of Santiago yesterday and by the hundreds of thousands of Chileans who joined in a

national protest against the Government last week. Union and Opposition leaders have been unable to harness the disaffection. Opposition leaders said that they had been hampered by the Government’s ban on political activity. But union leaders complained that the politicians had been mostly silent over the last two weeks, leaving them to confront the Government by themselves. General Pinochet’s Government, facing its most serious challenge in almost 10 years of military rule, has pursued the twin strategy of cracking down hard on union leaders while publicly refusing to acknowledge that anything out of the ordinary is going on.