Striking Truckers, Opposition Parties to Cooperate as Some Regional Officials Start Talks

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 28 – As the long-haul truckers’ strike in Russia enters its second month, some of the striking truckers have reached agreements with the KPRF and Just Russia Party to organize join marches on May Day (pln-pskov.ru/politics/276065.html), and some regional governments have begun to negotiate with the strikers (7x7-journal.ru/anewsitem/94460).

            There have been five other major developments involving the strikers over the last 24 hours:

·         Officials in Tyumen, one of the centers of the job action, ordered a group of drivers to appear in court to answer various charges (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5902056A72D43).

·         A Moscow commentator pointed out that the strike has highlighted far larger problems on Russia’s roads than just the Plato system and that the authorities must begin to examine all of these problems rather than using the strike as a blind to avoid doing so (ng.ru/ideas/2017-04-27/5_6983_cooperation.html).

·         In the North Caucasus, more drivers are reportedly arriving at strike stations than have left despite official claims to the contrary (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/301827/).

·         Strikers in Daghestan today are staging the demonstration they threatened if officials did not begin talking to them (kavkazr.com/a/dalnoboyshiki-dagestana-razacharovany-vlastyu/28454828.html).

·         Strikers in Volgograd say that they have been able to continue their action because of the concrete support local people have provided them (novostivolgograda.ru/news/society/28-04-2017/lager-dalnoboyschikov-do-sih-por-stoit-blagodarya-podderzhke-neravnodushnyh-cad0481e-5577-4ed4-aa49-9939d4a7bec3).