Geany is a veteran truck driver with more than 30 years of experience in the transportation sector, which he explained on the podcast tiktok ‘The voice of transport’ (@la.voz.del.transporte) the harsh working conditions, hours and salaries faced by those who spend their workday on the road. It is estimated that, in Spain, about 15,000 transporters are missing and there are many who have already raised their voices to ask for higher salaries and more controls on the working day.
This truck driver wanted to reflect on all this, wondering if, reviewing the working conditions, many people would accept a job on the road or not, taking into account the salary that, full-time, could reach 2,800 euros.
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A precariousness that makes many choose to emigrate to countries like Germany where there are job opportunities for more than 12,000 people, and the Accommodation is usually free or with a lower rent. To better explain this idea, Geany wanted to give as an example those who work sitting in an office, as could be the case of administrative staff and even civil servants.
“If you take someone who works sitting at a desk, in front of the computer, and you tell him: look, we’re doing something. You’ll have to work twelve, thirteen, or fourteen hours a day with a break for lunch, but you’re going to eat here, and then when you’re done you tell him, we’re going to put a mat for you and you’ll sleep here too.”
With this first reflection, he wants to open the eyes to the reality of those who work in his sector, who must eat on the road and sleep, many times, inside their trucks.
“At the end of the month they will pay you 2,500 euros”
The salary that a truck driver receives for all of this that Geany has just explained is 2,500, 2,600 or 2,800 euros. A figure that, he highlights, when presented to an official, office or administrative employee, “do you think he will do it or not?”, to which the interviewer responds: “I think he would be gone in a month.”
Because the life of a transporter is a sum of getting up early, hitting the road, and spending nights without showing up at home. It is a job in which the most important thing is the sacrifice, which both professionals and their families must make.
“There is no such thing as the camaraderie that we used to have.”
For Geany things have changed and not only at work. “There is not the camaraderie that there was before, I don’t know if it is because there are many people without experience or because of the new drivers who, in my opinion, arrive attracted by the salary and then cannot see beyond.”
“Before, I had a great admiration for truck drivers, the old ones, I would stop at a gas station and see them gathered, chatting… I wanted to be like them for the simple fact that they said good morning to me, talked to me and called me partner. And that is an achievement,” he explains in another post.