just some info in case you didn’t know but there is a general strike on the 29th of this month (sept)
not just transport but most companies around the country so just park up and take a break rather than upset the locals
from what I have been hearing it does not have too much support amongst the natives
some people in favour, some against, some don’t have a clue so just easier to have a day off and not risk some socialist left wing idiot throwing a brick at your windscreen because you don’t support his communist views comrade 
Totally agree,James.It only takes one who’s convinced he’s acting for the greater good.
welshboyinspain:
some people in favour, some against, some don’t have a clue so just easier to have a day off and not risk some socialist left wing idiot throwing a brick at your windscreen because you don’t support his communist views comrade
[zb] me james if they ar hanson bricks the,ll crumple before reaching the windscreen. 
why would the spanish lob hanson bricks dafydd?
there’s plenty of factories here that have millions of bricks lying around as there’s no construction going but i know not of any hanson factories over here
The government is skint, so we are going on strike because we want them to spend more money so that we can continue to live beyond our means as we have got use to for the last 25 years. I suppose it makes sense to somebody.
Ex Haulier:
The government is skint, so we are going on strike because we want them to spend more money so that we can continue to live beyond our means as we have got use to for the last 25 years. I suppose it makes sense to somebody.
When I started ‘doing’ Spain about 25 years ago the ‘Nationals’ where chocka each night with Pegaso & Dodge (Barreros) 8 wheeler night trunkers and at least 80% of the artics were also Pegaso & Dodge’s pulling scruffy tilts and old reefers, within 5 years this had changed enormously and the Volvo & Scania brigade pulling brand new trailers had taken a foothold.
My question is, has the Spannish haulage industry been ‘living beyond its means’?
Ross.
Ex Haulier:
The government is skint, so we are going on strike because we want them to spend more money so that we can continue to live beyond our means as we have got use to for the last 25 years. I suppose it makes sense to somebody.
actually fella its more a case of the spanish government trying to bring in new rules which means employers can get away with paying less money per year of contract when they try and get rid of us and putting up the pension age, i think the living beyond our means lies closer to the uk where years of labour borrowing and spending on single mothers and layabouts have left them with a huge debt.
the problems with the spanish government are pretty much the same because they are skint but this weeks strike is about workers rights not who’s borrowed and spent badly otherwise we’d all be on strike all the time across europe 
Oh dear WBS. You would have to be blind not to see that Spain has been living beyond it’s means. Most of the gross domestic product has come from building houses, roads, railways and no end of other stuff that was funded from income generated from building and grants from the EEC. You only have to look at La Linea council which is bust, a situation repeated all over Spain by the way. On the situation of personal employment contracts, it’s lovely for those that have them but the problem is that businesses will not risk taking anyone else on if it costs so much to get rid of them. Spain has to do something to try to reduce it’s unemployment. If you can’t devalue your currency to become more competitive and you can’t keep building stuff how are you ever going to make inroads into 20% overall and 40% youth unemployment. Spain is currently an economic car crash in slow motion.
Oh yes i forgot we’ve been living beyond our means in spain and the good old UK is holier than thou and not made any mistakes with its finances has it 
most of the building has benefitted brits who sold their overpriced houses in the SE of england to but the dream in the sun villas which they now can’t afford.
as far as the 20% unemployment one easy solution would be to follow sarkozy’s lead and send the romanians back home, after all the number of unemployed spanish truck drivers around murcia and almeria has no correlation to the huge numbers of romanians working for peanuts without contracts does it
i was trying to explain why the strike has been called regarding the goverments plans to make it easier to sack people from contracted employment by reducing the amount the employers have to pay, this isn’t anything to do with the financial crisis europe is in but if we stuck to your ideas employers wouldn’t take us on they’d simply get cheaper workers on “black money” without contracts and not paying taxes so how would that help the government?
we already have a higher VAT rate than most other countries and are currently paying more in local rates and taxes to try to get out of this dilemma.
as far as la linea and several other councils are concerned maybe the word you are looking for is CORRUPTION, after all where has the money gone in the last 3 months to pay the local police? the residents have paid their taxes but the money has gone somewhere but certainly not on services expected.
I think your getting a bit confused mate. Did i say anything about the UK ?, but if you want me to. It will weather the problems a lot better than Spain simply because it has it’s own currency. If anywhere had overpriced housing it was Spain, you only have to look at how much values have fallen compared to the UK. Surely sarko is kicking the romanians out because they don’t work, you want to kick out EEC citizens because they do ?. If they do, how long do you think it will be before they think we might as well kick you out as well ?. If you had ever been an employer you would know that one of the main reasons for not taking people on is that it would bankrupt you if you have have no work for them and you have to lay them off. Anyway, it’s something Spain can no longer afford and it will have to go.
It was much better under General Franco.
if everyone in spain went on strike, it would make little difference. they don’t do much work as it is.
bigr250:
Ex Haulier:
The government is skint, so we are going on strike because we want them to spend more money so that we can continue to live beyond our means as we have got use to for the last 25 years. I suppose it makes sense to somebody.When I started ‘doing’ Spain about 25 years ago the ‘Nationals’ where chocka each night with Pegaso & Dodge (Barreros) 8 wheeler night trunkers and at least 80% of the artics were also Pegaso & Dodge’s pulling scruffy tilts and old reefers, within 5 years this had changed enormously and the Volvo & Scania brigade pulling brand new trailers had taken a foothold.
My question is, has the Spannish haulage industry been ‘living beyond its means’?
Ross.
Of course they have. It’s just the same here and virtually every other country. Everything’s on credit these days, no-one saves up anymore except those with common sense that don’t subscribe to the “must have it now to keep up the jones’s” bull[zb]. All you’ve got to do is to take a look at the consumer debt graphs over the past 3 decades to see this. They’ve gone from virtually nothing to billions over that period and none of it is/was and never will be sustainable. The sooner people wake up to the reality of this, the sooner things can get back to ‘normal’. 
Yep, 'twas all just a gigantic Ponzi scheme… I don’t think people realise quite how bad it has to get before it gets better.
Harry Monk:
Yep, 'twas all just a gigantic Ponzi scheme… I don’t think people realise quite how bad it has to get before it gets better.
Tbh Harry I was saying same as you re it’s got to get worse before it gets better, but I reckon now they’ll somehow fudge some thicker paper over the cracks and carry on as normal. Let’s face it, people were saying this a few years back that it’d all end in tears but then out comes the printing press and problem fixed (for now). Don’t see too many people suffering much in day-to-day life here, seems to be carrying on as normal and many are chuffed with the situation as they’re only paying 2p per month on their tracker mortgages. Must be some serious fudging going on behind the scenes to keep the IRs and inflation at bay for so long though. Somehow can’t see that lasting much longer but I was saying that 2 years ago and they seem to have pulled it off so far. 
Nah, the game’s up now, VAT up in January, public sector cuts of 6% a year for the next four years, interest rates predicted to climb from next year… I remember mortgage interest rates of over 15%, it would only take a sudden currency crisis for those to be back… £150,000 of mortgage doesn’t look quite so appealing if it costs £22,000 a year just to service it…even rate increases of 2-3% are going to wipe a hell of a lot of people out.
Harry Monk:
Nah, the game’s up now, VAT up in January, public sector cuts of 6% a year for the next four years, interest rates predicted to climb from next year… I remember mortgage interest rates of over 15%, it would only take a sudden currency crisis for those to be back… £150,000 of mortgage doesn’t look quite so appealing if it costs £22,000 a year just to service it…even rate increases of 2-3% are going to wipe a hell of a lot of people out.
I agree with this, BUT this is what people were saying a few years back, how 2009 and 2010 would be armageddon and we’d all be eating baked beans and carrying wheelbarrows of 20s around with us. None of it’s happened and life carries on as normal for the vast majority of folks. I reckon if we come here in 2012 things will be much the same, and in 2014 as well.
But that was only because the last Gubmint were frantically trying to delay Armageddon until after the election in the vain hope of winning- over 70,000 new public sector jobs were created in the last quarter of 2009 alone. They will be the first to go. But then how many more “outreach officers” do we need?
As a country, we are like a bloke who has maxed out his credit cards, MEWed his mortgage to the hilt, then had to take a huge pay cut. The bailiffs might not be knocking on the door, but they are already walking up the front path.
bigr250:
When I started ‘doing’ Spain about 25 years ago the ‘Nationals’ where chocka each night with Pegaso & Dodge (Barreros) 8 wheeler night trunkers and at least 80% of the artics were also Pegaso & Dodge’s pulling scruffy tilts and old reefers, within 5 years this had changed enormously and the Volvo & Scania brigade pulling brand new trailers had taken a foothold.My question is, has the Spannish haulage industry been ‘living beyond its means’?
Ross.
I didn’t venture into Spain much until about 92/93. By then it was all flash with brand new fridges and hardly a tilt to be seen unless it was porky. Still being pulled by Enasa built lorries though, that would have put some money into the economy, now when you send it all to Germany, Scandinavia and Romania, the costas are just that, costly!