Monday, April 27, 2009

Even Though We Ain't Got Hats Or Badges...

Transport unions in Morocco staged a nine-day strike earlier this month to protest proposed changes to national traffic laws.

Citing the damage the strike had done to the national economy, the unions decided to suspend the strike for 15 days, hoping the government would take the time to repeal the proposed changes. It didn't work. The unions will be going back on strike this Wednesday.

...transport professionals have, since its presentation, voiced concern over many of its provisions that place hefty fines of between 200 and 4,000 US dollars, along with imprisonment terms in cases of road accidents causing deaths or serious injuries. -MAP

Imagine you live in Gunns Corners (or better yet Depauville). No one in your town has a car, and for transport to the grocery store, pharmacy, doctor, and gmail, you need to rely on taxi drivers whose job it is to shuttle people back and forth between cities and towns. Once the taxis are taken away you have little to no access to just about anything, and once you get to town prices have shot up so high that you can't buy half the things you meant to in the first place.

Morocco is considered to have some of the most dangerous roads in the world. The statistic I usually see is 10 deaths per day. Whether or not the new laws are a positive step, the strike is making things hard enough for most people that they'd be more than willing to see the new proposals go out the window.

But most of the time I just think of this:


1 Comments:

Blogger wide-eyed innocent said...

Thanks for the Newsies link. :)

This is the first I've heard that the strike was supposed to restart this Wednesday. Or do you mean next week? Because around here, at least, there hasn't been any new striking. And all Peace Corps told us about is demonstrations in Casa and Rabat. (Labor Day's timing is a little ironic!)

So what do you think? Will the strike restart? Llah y str!

May 1, 2009 at 7:33 PM  

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