The opportunistic strike at the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (Catalan Railways)
The Catalan Railways (FGC) transported over one hundred million passengers last year, a record figure, with a punctuality rate exceeding 99% on all lines and overall user satisfaction. Anyone who doubts these figures need only ask the passengers. They'll surely tell you that the lines connecting Sabadell and Terrassa with Barcelona, and vice versa (60,000 people commute to work in Sant Cugat every day, though not all by train), are packed early in the morning, and that beyond Sant Cugat, it's a real squeeze to board the carriages, but that the service is exceptionally punctual. For all these reasons, I listened with interest to the arguments given by José Javier Bleda, the regional railway secretary for the Semaf union, to justify the strike that began yesterday and will continue next week. In an interview on Radio 4, Mr. Bleda spoke of "latent risks," such as "in certain areas of the network, trains begin to skid, preventing the driver from braking where they want"; that, ultimately, "many general issues have specific underlying problems"; that they have been reporting everything; that the reports have been ignored; and that patience has its limits.
When the causes are so vague and so far removed from the daily experience of users, and when, to all appearances, the trains, stations, punctuality, and safety are excellent, the strike is completely untenable, and what seems to be something other than what it seems is ultimately pointless. But the reality is that these opportunistic strikers are wrong.
