“It was said that whoever was discovered with the application was going to be sanctioned and expelled from the radio”told The Observer one of the 125 taxi drivers who have been offering services with the Uber application since Thursday, and whose identity he asked to keep confidential for fear of reprisals. Another driver confirmed the version that circulates among the brand new registered on the platform.
This was discussed at a meeting of the Single Taxi Guild at the end of last year, after the multinational announced the new mechanism that enabled the entry of carriers who since 2015 had positioned themselves on a war footing.
Sources from the management board reported that in that instance there were motions from the partners to take “union defense” measures towards those owners who allowed their drivers to operate with Uber. Another management source stated that the decision does not speak of “sanctions”.
However, in the direction of the bosses they understand that the workers who register to offer their taxi services through Uber are choosing to stay outside the union. In fact, this means not receiving clients through Radio Taxi 141 or the Voy en taxi application.
From the opposition list they indicated The Observer that they would not confirm any information and that he go to the ruling party.
All the queries led to Óscar Dourado, a referent of the Guild. “We do not make any kind of statements,” was the businessman’s response to the question of whether the employer would retaliate against Uber Taxi drivers. Dourado declined to provide any details. Until now, the employers have avoided expressing themselves about Uber’s new bet.
“If we are going to talk about application by application, I have used the others for 10 years and everyone knows how well it works. Apart from that, everyone uses it. This came about with Uber. If you can’t do it with Uber, you can’t do it with Cabify either. If things get loose, we’ll see what happens,” he told The Observer the Uber Taxi driver when asked if he feared reprisals for operating with the application.
Last Friday, January 28, the mechanism announced by Uber at the beginning of December began to work. According to data provided by the company to The Observer, to date there are 125 taxi drivers working with the platform. The application charges 1% commission for each trip made by workers during the first three months of validity.
Rates are governed by the values set by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, unlike the dynamic modality –defined by demand– that applies to private cars.
The general secretary of the Taxi Union (Suatt), Damián Fernández, considered in dialogue with The Observer that “the percentage” of taxi drivers who sought to link up with Uber is negligible. “We have not discussed it in assembly, but it is something that is half farfetched that the company does. It will be running out of private cars,” he stated in reference to the multinational.
“We understand that Uber doesn’t have to be there. From that definition, if Uber doesn’t have to be there, Uber Taxi doesn’t have to be there,” said the unionist. “Uber made a deep impression on the working sector, and it continues to make a deep impression on it. The fight continues and is reflected in this, because there are already platforms on the market that work with taxis. Uber is not here to innovate in that sense,” he recalled.
The president of the Chamber of Transportation, Juan Salgado, stated for this article: “We are interested in education, safety, the health issue, everything that contributes to that, which is through taxes. Therefore, I agree with the media in the propaganda they did: ‘Do not encourage piracy‘”.
