According to Total News, cited by Public Relations of the Association, referring to the wave of protests against the integrity of the association’s elections, Ghorban Jafarzadegan said, “due to the protests that took place during the association’s elections, the activities of this period started with a delay of 2 months. Due to the protests in the field of election integrity, Sardar Ali Hossein Rayati, the deputy of labor relations of the Ministry of Labor, Welfare and Social Affairs, who is responsible for supervising trade unions, personally entered into this issue. After many reviews, the approval of the elections and the new board of directors took place on November 8, 2022.
The Secretary of the Trade Union of International Transport Companies of Iran said, in the constitution of the association, the executor of the elections is the former board of directors, and it is also clearly stated that for the elections, the maximum number of members (currently the association has 650 members) or their legal representative (having an official power of attorney or a letter of introduction on behalf of the director or member is required) to participate in the elections. The protestors caused the destruction of the golden quarter of this period of the association with the suspicion that the people who participated in the elections as members’ representatives were not the owners of the votes.
Jafarzadegan called the system outage one of the biggest challenges for the beginning of this period of the association and added, the association’s website was taken out of reach by an unknown person or group, despite many follow-ups, the FATA police failed to identify the offender. When the system was unavailable, it was not possible to insert a complete report of traffic records, issued visas, financial reports, etc.
He added, this period of the association, until Nowruz 1402, was under a lot of pressure both from the members and government bodies such as the highway organization, customs, etc. Due to the failure of the system and the loss of automation, all information was recorded manually, and with the cooperation and round-the-clock efforts of various departments in the association, we were able to update the system until March 2022.
The Secretary of the Trade Union of International Transport Companies of Iran called the approach of the association in this period of the board of directors interactive and added, in the meetings of the board of directors, it was decided that unlike the previous periods of the association, which was viewed from the top down, we should have interaction between departments and organizations. So far, after one year has passed, these interactions with customs, road organization, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, etc. have been going well.
Jafarzadegan considered attention to the category of education as one of the other goals of the association and said, one of the most basic and important actions taken during this period of the association is specialized training for the forces of transportation companies. For many years, the Transportation Association has been the only one in charge of holding FIATA specialized training courses in Iran, but unfortunately, in the previous period, for unknown reasons, a parallel organization with the association was able to obtain the permission to hold FIATA training courses from the association. For many years, the Iranian Association has been the only one in charge of holding FIATA specialized training courses in Iran, but unfortunately, in the previous period, for unknown reasons, an organization parallel to the Association was able to obtain the license to hold FIATA training courses. After a lot of follow-up by the members of the board of directors and the guidance of the former chairman of the board of directors of the association, Javad Semsarilar, we were able to receive permission to hold courses again and issue a certificate from FIATA.
He considered it important to employ expert professors in training courses and added, FIATA training courses are being held continuously and the activists in the field of transportation are waiting in line to participate in the courses and these classes are held every day in Iran Association.
The Secretary of the Trade Union of International Transport Companies of Iran stated that the number of students studying is 200 and added, we are looking to expand the educational space to increase the number of students, because we are currently facing the limitation of educational space. It is hoped that we will be able to improve education qualitatively and quantitatively with the support of the trustee organizations.
While referring to the acceptance of students from the whole country to participate in FIATA courses, Jafarzadegan said, the association has made it possible to accept students from all over the country or to send professors to different cities and provinces, if the number of students reaches the limit. The whole effort of the education field in the association is to improve the quality of the content in face-to-face training. The whole effort of the education field in the forum is to improve the quality of the content in face-to-face training, because the virtual training platform is not suitable at the moment, but the Education Council is investigating for virtual education while maintaining the standard qualities, which I hope will happen soon for the convenience of the applicants of the cities.
He considered organizing the transportation visa of drivers as one of the other one-year measures of the association and said, in the new period of the board of directors, the visa application procedure with more criteria is being carried out, which was announced to the colleagues in the form of three circulars. Our colleagues in the visa issuing section of the forum, without considering any side parameters (such as the age of the company, the volume of cargo moved, rent, etc.) put the requests in turn. With the round-the-clock efforts of colleagues, the comprehensive system for visa application will be designed and put into operation by next week. With this system, in addition to eliminating the manual registration of the request, the speed and accuracy of the appointment will also increase.
Jafarzadegan mentioned the arrangement of driver visas in order to establish justice between them and said, the action to issue visas is not beneficial for the association either in terms of work or materially. Due to the problems faced by drivers and international transport companies, in order to prevent the black market for obtaining visas, the association adopted a mechanism to solve this problem in a fair way.
The Secretary of Trade Union of International Transport Companies of Iran considered sanctions as the reason for not issuing visas by embassies and added, “One of our biggest problems in the field of international transportation is the non-issuance of visas by the embassies of the Schengen area, for example, Italy is currently the only country that gives 80 visas to Iranian drivers per month.” In the association, in cooperation with the Road Organization and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we held several meetings with some embassies and ambassadors of European countries, in order to facilitate the issuance of Schengen visas for international drivers and we hope to see the issuance of visas from other countries to reduce the demand in this sector.
Jafarzadegan stated that the request for issuing visas by the association was clear and added, since the beginning of this period of the association, 860 visas have been issued for drivers. Due to the restrictions of the embassies for issuing visas to Iranians and the number of applications available, it may take a year to issue a visa.
Referring to the activities of the Arbaeen headquarters in the association, Jafarzadegan said, during a call, drivers who were willing to participate in the pious work of sending items to Najaf Ashraf were invited to cooperate. In this regard, 17 trucks from companies that are members of the International Transport Association of Iran have announced their readiness to send and transport items needed by the Arbaeen headquarters for free and have been sent to Najaf Ashraf and Karbala, and with the decision of the board of directors, in order to appreciate and also create a culture to attend good work, visa issuance facilities were considered for these drivers, and it was decided that if these drivers are in the European visa queue, their queue will be moved a few months ahead.
The secretary of the Trade Union of Transport Companies of Iran also said about organizing the issuance of Dozvoleh, the association is the only 50-year-old organization that has been responsible for the distribution of Dozvoleh from the beginning. In the past periods, due to the lack of a system, the registration of the application was done manually that with the effort and round-the-clock efforts of Mr. Pedram Amiri, a member of the board of directors, the road and IT department of the association, the issuance of the Dozvoleh is done in a fair way, through the system that in addition to the higher speed of operation, there is real-time monitoring of the road organization in this plan.
He considered the achievement of the first rank in the issuance of Dozvoleh as one of the one-year achievements of the association and said, with the efforts and round-the-clock efforts of the colleagues, the association has achieved the first rank in the field of issuance of Dozvoleh and has been encouraged by the road organization.
The Secretary of the Trade Union of Iranian Transport Companies considered the design of the comprehensive system as the reason for the fair allocation of road transport and added, the comprehensive Dozvoleh system has been unveiled for some time as a test, and this has resulted in the fair allocation of Dozvoleh, i.e. traffic permits in the territory of other countries. One of the advantages of this system is to know the current stock of Dozvoleh for the target country. For example, a transport company that is applying for Dozvolehs in the country of Slovenia, with the help of this system, in addition to know the number of Dozvoleh available by the road organization and the applicant, it is also possible to register the request electronically.
Referring to the necessity of returning the unused Dozvoleh, Jafarzadegan stated, before the implementation of the comprehensive system, the companies kept the unused Dozvoleh with them and did not return them, according to the circular sent to the companies, if the company does not use the issued Dozvoleh, which is valid for two months and one day, it is required to return it and settle the account. Otherwise, the offending company will be fined.
He considered the revival of the joint secretariat for the purpose of counting the problems as one of the other actions of this period and added, in order to reflect the problems and challenges of the transportation sector to the responsible organizations, we needed to organize a single voice from the transportation industry. Reviving the joint secretariat was one of the most important actions of this period of the association. The first joint secretariat was established by Mr. Younes Javid Aghasi, but this issue remained silent in the previous board of directors.
Jafarzadegan, pointing to the holding of numerous meetings of the joint secretariat, said, the members of the joint secretariat consist of 8 associations, Khorasan, Sistan and Baluchistan, Iran Association, Northwest of the country, Shipping and Related Services Association, West Azerbaijan Association, Golestan and Ardabil. The first meeting of the secretariat will be held in March 2022 in Mashhad, then in Tehran, Tabriz, Urmia, and the fifth meeting will be held in the beginning of December hosted by Ardabil.
He considered visiting the country’s customs and providing expert opinions as one of the important achievements of revitalizing the joint secretariat and said, the first achievement that was obtained from these meetings was an 8-hour visit to Bazargan customs, in order to identify and submit a report to the Director General of the Office of Transit Supervision for the purpose of finding problems.
The Secretary of the Trade Union of Iranian Transport Companies added, during the visit to Bazargan Customs in the presence of Mr. Rasti, Bahrami and Ebrahimi, the problems were examined closely and suggestions to solve the existing problems according to the law were made to the Road Organization, Customs of Iran, and the Ministry of Interior and also the governorate of West Azarbaijan announced, so that they can take decisions to solve the problems of this border customs.
Referring to the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Iran Shipping Association, Jafarzadegan said, in a joint meeting held by the joint secretariat with Iran Shipping Association, a memorandum of understanding was signed for further cooperation with that association. According to the plans, the first meeting of specialized commissions will be held in the container and legal sector, consisting of Iranian transportation experts and shipping association. One of the common issues is the right to stop containers, which is a change in the right to stop containers, which should be reviewed in the joint commission.
He considered the removal of transport companies from Section 2B as one of the most important achievements of the Transport Association and said, one of the most important actions of the association was the withdrawal of a group of member and non-member companies from Section 2, which was proposed by this association and Iranian customs agreed. The member companies of Section 2, with the smallest violation, were deprived of customs facilities. Iran Association seriously followed up on this issue and currently no company is deprived of transit insurance facilities under this pretext and all of them were excluded from Section 2. There is a note in this context, which includes judicial rulings regarding the conviction of a company whose violation has been confirmed, and according to this, that company will naturally be deprived of facilities.
Jafarzadegan called the attempt to extend the validity period of the companies’ activity licenses to ten years as one of the other important activities of the association and said, “consultations with the road organization, regarding the extension of the validity period of the companies’ activity licenses to 10 years, have been carried out and currently, this issue is being investigated and followed up by the experts of the highway organization.
At the end of the conversation, the Secretary of the Trade Union of Transport Companies of Iran said, “we have not yet reached the general goals that we had drawn at the beginning, and we have been facing many challenges during this time.” It is hoped that we will be able to take great steps to reduce the existing problems with the association of the member companies of the association, the board of directors and the custodian organizations.