 Chongqing cabbies air grievances
By Wang Ying (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-07 07:42 A top official in Chongqing yesterday visited representatives of taxi drivers who had staged a strike earlier in the week. Bo Xilai, Party secretary of Chongqing, listened to the drivers' grievances for three hours. The meeting was broadcast live by Chongqing Television and other news portals. Bo, also a CPC politburo member, promised to crack down on unlicensed taxis which are affecting the business of the legal ones. "The municipal government is concerned, as this could affect tens of thousands of families. So today, we have this opportunity to sit down and talk face to face," Bo said. "We have loopholes in management, which includes bureaucracies." He suggested taxi drivers set up an organization to maintain dialogue with the government. Bo said Chongqing taxi fares were too low compared with other large cities in the country. Chongqing taxis charge a basic 5 yuan plus 1.2 yuan for every kilometer traveled. In Beijing the charge is 10 yuan plus 2 yuan per kilometer. Liang Peijun, deputy director of the city's transport administration, said the taxi drivers stopped working on Monday morning to protest against four issues - insufficient supplies of compressed natural gas (CNG), which fuels most taxis in the city; competition from unlicensed taxis; low taxi prices and the unfair division of fares between drivers and companies. However, a Chongqing taxi driver surnamed Liu said the high fines for traffic violations triggered the strike. "Some drivers are fined five or six times a day and the fines are huge," Liu said. The strike became violent as some taxi drivers tried to stop others from working, Xinhua News Agency reported. On Tuesday, about 4,000 taxi drivers who took part in the protest returned to work after the government promised to reduce fees the drivers pay to their companies, increase CNG supplies and step up efforts to crack down on unlicensed taxis. (China Daily 11/07/2008 page3) |
