Truckers’ strike: ‘Strike will continue if demands not met’

Truckers claim to be stopped at every stop from Punjab to Sindh.

KARACHI: On the 10th day of their strike, the United Goods Transporters Alliance (UGTA), an alliance of goods owners associations, staged a rally outside Customs House on Tuesday.

Claiming to be harassed by the National Highway Authority and the National Highways and Motorways Police (NHMP) at every stop from Punjab to Sindh, hundreds of truckers stood with banners and shouted slogans against the Sindh government. Speakers at the rally announced that all goods transporters across Pakistan have joined their strike, halting every activity relating to goods transportation in the country. The All Pakistan Oil Tankers Owners Association (APOTOA) chairman Mir Muhammad Yousuf Shahwani has also announced to join the truckers’ strike if their demands are not met by the government within 48 hours.

The APOTOA spokesman, Anwar Mehsud, told The Express Tribune that their chairman has said all the associations of oil transporters will also go strike in favour of truckers’ demands. The UGTA general secretary, Muhammad Shoaib Khan, said that the government of Sindh has asked them to negotiate and end the strike. “We rejected the government’s call for negotiations; if they [the government] want to talk then they should come to us and meet our demands,” said Khan.

A 38-year-old truck driver Khadim Hussain was curious to know when the strike will end. “The salary I get feeds my family of six. I will only get paid once the owner of the truck has any income,” said Hussain, adding that he earns around Rs10,000 a month. Showing a bullet wound mark on his arm after an attempted robbery at Shershah, Hussain said that dealing with robbers in the middle of the night is a huge problem.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2012.