THE SLOVAK Union of Motor Carriers (UNAS) that organised a strike beginning February 1 to force the government to change the rules of the electronic toll collection system and its fees, and to postpone its launch, has decided to stop its strike due to nation-wide police intervention against the truck drivers, Jaroslav Polaček from UNAS wrote to media on February 3, the TASR newswire reported.
UNAS remains on strike alert and plan to file a lawsuit over the police intervention, during which many truck drivers had their driving licences revoked and were fined, which the transporters see as a violation of human rights. Furthermore, UNAS said it intends to sue the electronic road-toll operator, SkyToll, over what it calls a dysfunctional toll collection system. According to TASR, the truckers claim they are willing to go as far as the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
“When a person’s freedom is limited in a way that they are held at a parking lot without toilets or water and cannot leave, I can only call it limiting personal freedom, and that is a human rights issue,” said Rudolf Páleš, the vice chairman of UNAS, as quoted by the SITA newswire. He referred to the event on February 1 when the police stopped around 20 trucks at the highway rest area in Triblavina and prevented them from driving on to Bratislava.
Some carriers protested in front of the Government building in Bratislava on February 2.
