In her editorial in Diario Libre today, Tuesday 15 March 2016, Ines Aizpun openly asks whether Dominican society wants the so-called union leaders as legislators.
Fenatrano union leader Juan Hubieres is already a legislator.
She welcomes that they have begun to refer to themselves as transport businessmen instead of union leaders. She expresses her concern that the transport kingpins and businessmen incursions into politics. She mentions Juan Hubieres, Antonio Marte, Blas Peralta and Cambita (Alfredo Pulinario Linares) among the transport businessmen.
She goes on to say that it can be assumed that their work as union leaders has made them wealthy and now they manage their power and money from other positions. “That combination of mass mobilizers/union leaders/businessmen/politicians is a Molotov cocktail for society,” she states.
She points out that as businessmen they operate with advantages. “They are allowed to impose their monopolies, harass the competition, threaten violent strikes, and extort the government for favors ranging from subsidized fuel to fleets of vehicles.”
“They must be the only transport businessmen in the world whose vehicles circulate in total disrepair under the noses of traffic cops, break transit rules, endanger their passengers and contribute to worsening transport with praise-worthy efficiency. Their monopolies raise the cost of living for everyone when they affect the competitiveness of the companies that they coerce. Once they become legislators, they make laws that will only apply to others,” she writes.
She warns:
“The politicians have used them against the common good for their own benefit. We are in the midst of a campaign: it is not the first time that they’ve gone from baseball bats to gunshots. Do we really want them as candidates?”
Her commentary makes direct reference to the recent case involving one of the most powerful transport businessmen, truckers’ union leader Blas Peralta, accused of murdering former university rector Mateo Aquino Febrillet last Friday, 11 March 2016 following a political row.
http://www.diariolibre.com/opinion/am/hasta-cuando-MI3028871
