"My door is always open" - but more taxi strikes imminent

Tuesday 30 May 2017

The Minister insists his "door is always open," but still taxi drivers are threatening to strike again indefinitely from tomorrow claiming it has actually been "shut in their faces."

An ongoing dispute over industry reforms reached "crisis" point over the weekend, after rank taxi drivers took a day of industrial action last Thursday. The reforms would see both rank and private hire taxis charge the same maximum fares.

For decades, Jersey has been under a two-tier taxi system, whereby public rank taxis, which are allowed to wait for customers in designated areas like the Weighbridge and Snow Hill, are regulated by the States, and private hire cabs can charge what they want.

Both hires will now come under a single-tier system, with just three types of tariff, down from up to eight. Private hires will still be allowed to charge a booking fee, which may mean that their fares are still higher than public rank taxis, but these fees will have to be declared.

But the Public Rank drivers say the Minister, Deputy Eddie Noel, decided upon the reforms without due consideration for how it would affect their business and that he had “closed the door in [their] face” amid talks over the changes.

In response to the protest, Deputy Noel allowed private hire taxis to collect passengers from taxi ranks at the airport and harbour to mitigate the effect of the “lightning strike" on the 2,500 people expected to arrive in the Island that day. 

Pictured: The sign left for passengers at the Weighbridge.

While the move was intended as a temporary measure, the Jersey Taxi Drivers Association have expressed frustration that private hire cabs allegedly continued to operate using the Weighbridge rank on Friday night and into the early hours of Saturday morning despite assurances to the Ports of Jersey that there would be no further industrial action over the weekend, and therefore no need for private hires to operate in the area. 

Since then, taxi drivers concluded at an emergency meeting that they would completely withdraw their services for a second time starting tomorrow, Wednesday 31 May, and threaten that it could “escalate” if the talks don’t resume. 

In a statement, the JTDA said: “We are all in agreement that we are prepared to work together to try and reach a settlement from within the Taxi-cab Industry that works best for all involved in the Taxi-cab Industry and the Public who use our services."

Pictured: Taxi ranks could again be left empty around the Island, as was the case last Thursday, if the Department for Infrastructure do not resume talks with the JTDA.

It later continued: “From the Publc Rank's point of view, we strongly feel that the Minister, Deputy Eddie Noel has now put the Island's Taxi-cab service into a crisis and we can only see that industrial action will escalate very shortly if talks cannot resume and the process is halted until it can be resolved and as a start the Minister should remove the signs he has placed at the ranks immediately.

“It is astonishing that during these extremely difficult times for the Taxi-cab Industry that the Minister is nowhere to be seen.

“Furthermore that unless we can get an assurance that talks will resume without delay then the Public Rank Taxis will be withdrawing our services completely starting on Wednesday 1st June until further notice.”

Tweeting in response, Deputy Eddie Noel stated: “JTDA know that my door is always open, happy to discuss next phases of modernising the taxi-cab industry in Jersey with JTDA and others.”