Thousands of truck drivers — mostly owner-operators — joined a one-week strike that began May 22 and shut down cargo depots and more in 130 cities across Iran. Above, strikers in Gilanegharb May 26.
The strike was called in the wake of the April 26 explosion at the port in Bandar Abbas. Many of the 70 workers killed and more than 1,000 wounded were truck drivers. Despite government denials, it’s widely believed the explosion was caused by a shipment of chemicals for making fuel for Tehran’s ballistic missiles the regime uses against Israel, which it has vowed to destroy.
“We have received nothing but neglect, humiliation, rising costs and empty promises,” the Truckers and Drivers Union of Iran said in its strike call. “Enough is enough.”
“This movement is not just a strike,” the union said on the first day. “If the wheels of their trucks do not turn the wheels of corruption and repression will not turn either.”
One driver said that in the last two months insurance costs “increased by 100%; truck oil by over 100%. Truck parts increase daily” including the cost of tires. The drivers are also protesting the shortage of fuel at subsidized prices, high road tolls, dangerous highway conditions, low rates for hauling freight and late payments by the shippers.
Retirees in Ahvaz, Khuzestan, used their weekly protest May 25 to call for solidarity with the truckers strike and with wheat farmers angry over delays in government payments for their crops. Drivers who work for capitalist hauling companies also joined the protests.
At the truck terminal in Sanandaj, a Kurdish city, police attacked strikers with pepper spray May 25 and arrested several drivers. “Protest is not a crime; it is our legal right,” the association said. Two days later, police arrested 11 strikers in Kermanshah. Hundreds of drivers gathered in front of the governor’s office to demand their immediate and unconditional release.
On May 25 the day after the Iranian regime’s Fars News Agency said that reports of a strike were false and “counterrevolutionary,” the strike had expanded from 72 to 105 cities.