The labor unions gathered since 10 a.m. this morning in La Sabana and started their march towards the legislative assembly as planned; currently the Central Avenue in San Jose and 42nd Street as well as the Second Avenue are completely closed for this reason; the tension between the strikers and the Government continues to raise as traffic police has run operations the morning of this Wednesday, as they have been doing in the past days, to take down plates of buses that are being misused to transport protesters.

Yesterday afternoon after the sixth day of “preliminary dialogue” between representatives of the Government and leaders of the labor unions, these last accused the Government of sabotaging the massive protest scheduled for this upcoming Wednesday, claiming that the actions of the transit police in removing the plates of buses transporting strikers had the purpose of intimidating bus companies to keep them from transporting strikers; the Government, however, has made clear that the transit police is following the law, since the units being used are of public transportation and therefore must comply with the permits granted and are not to be used for other purposes.

Strikers warned that if the transit police continued with these actions today they would block streets “we apologize in advance, but we will have no choice but walk and this will cause road blocks”, stated one of the union leaders.

The transit police reports having removed 22 plates from buses out of their regular route and transporting protesters.

“This morning by 7 a.m. we had checked more than 70 units, out of which we sanctioned 22 for the non-compliance with the Transit Law 9078. The units do not have the permit of the Public Transportation Council to offer the service they are providing”, explained Germán Marin, director of Transit.

The rest of the buses checked all had the necessary permits.