The train drivers' mistake

Excluding the pandemic, the rail crisis is, due to its magnitude and duration, one of the most serious infrastructural—and by extension, economic and social—episodes that Catalonia has experienced in recent years. After decades of neglect, it will take time and money to modernize the commuter rail network, and it will take even more to regain the trust of users and citizens as a whole. A systemic failure like this only deepens political disaffection and puts the institutional system in a precarious position, currently giving wings to anti-establishment parties of the populist far right. In this sense, it is actually worrying that Saturday's demonstrations did not have a massive turnout: it means that people don't really believe in a possible solution and it also means that the protest will be channeled through other false and more unpredictable avenues.

In this context, the strike by train drivers and railway workers has only added to the despair and incomprehension of passengers. If until now they were seen as victims of inadequate investment and maintenance—train drivers died in the Gelida and Adamuz accidents—suddenly, with Monday's strike, they have become part of the problem. How can it be that, amidst the chaos, instead of rolling up their sleeves to ensure an already damaged service, they have contributed to deepening the disaster with a strike in which, moreover, minimum services were not even provided? It is difficult to understand such an insensitive attitude, so detached from the critical situation.

In fact, throughout this entire railway crisis, it has often been clear that the inflexibility of Renfe staff, coupled with poor Renfe-Adif coordination and the Generalitat's lack of tools and capacity to manage the workers, has meant that the repeated announcements of line recovery were never fully realized. But the long-suffering users and a public opinion steeped in fatalism didn't seem to hold them accountable and pointed the finger higher up, at the managers (Renfe and Adif) and the political leaders (with the State at the forefront and the Government in a prominent secondary role).

But the ill-timed strike call has turned the tables. It only lasted a day because it was unsustainable, incomprehensible. The agreements reached to call off the strike so quickly don't seem to differ much from what had already been promised: doubling investment in trains, more guarantees for network maintenance, more staff – this is noticeable – and transparent monitoring of the entire process. Without the strike and with a public attitude of commitment and responsibility, railway workers would surely have been more legitimate in achieving professional and labor advancements, as happened, for example, during the pandemic with the medical community, whose undeniable dedication during its collapse was commensurate with the greatest storm of the coronavirus – putting the public at risk. This has not been the case for train drivers, who have failed to empathize with passengers and establish a genuine alliance to benefit a leap forward in rail service, including local management by the Catalan government, an element they have also opposed until now.