Police remove firefighter trucks blocking Colon streets

Crowd Control units of the National Police removed vehicles and tanker trucks used by firefighters on Thursday, June 1 to block roads in Cuatro Altos in the province of Colón, to protest for the lack of agreement with the government for salary increases. The demonstration lasted for more than an hour and caused all the accesses to and from the province to remain incommunicado until the National Police removed firefighters’ vehicles with a crane.

The delay in the signing of the agreement to formalize the so-called “promotions for justice” in the Panama Fire Department keeps the red shirts upset, who since last week have carried out various measures of pressure in rejection of what they consider an “expansion of the process” by the authorities to comply with the salary adjustments that they had already been promised.

Despite the fact that in recent days members of the union, representatives of the Ministry of Government and high-ranking officers of the Fire Department met and managed to reach positions, the red shirts at the last minute decided not to lift the protest measures and the demonstrations have continued throughout the country, especially in the province of Chiriquí where the closure of the Inter-American Highway has generated economic losses to the industry and the production sector.