Today, the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council has called the Taxi Board to a meeting to address, among other issues, the 2024 work calendar and the number of licenses for next year. A meeting that is held surrounded by controversy, as it is preceded by the announcement of a half-day strike notice for the next January 2, 3, 4 and 5 that the Elite Taxi collective – which leads the majority at the table of the sector- has presented to the Government Subdelegation.
The protest, which will consist of a caravan of taxis on Avenida Tres del Mayo, between the El Corte Inglés and Benito Pérez Armas roundabout, responds in the opinion of the organizers to the excess of licenses that exist in the capital, in addition to the fact that “the The City Council wants to establish the 2024 work calendar to favor certain interests, harming taxi drivers,” said Elite Taxi spokesperson Miguel Ojeda yesterday.
In this sense, the representative of the taxi group stressed that “if the City Council does not rectify and continues its constant sabotage of the union, at the beginning of January we will block the city.”
For her part, the councilor of the area explained yesterday to DIARIO DE AVISOS that “the work calendar that we present at the Taxi Table extends the current one by 30 days a year, an increase to 100%, not 80% as now, to be applied punctually, only when more than 8,000 cruise passengers arrive in the capital.”
In this regard, he stated that “if the associations decline the proposal due to the arrival of large cruise ships, then it will not be made and the offer will be withdrawn. Despite this, according to what the Port Authority and even the taxi associations themselves inform us, the main complaint of users is due to the lack of service in the city in these specific cases and, my duty is to guarantee that citizens do not find themselves affected if there are not enough taxis.”
For this reason, Alonso added, “what we bring to the table is a specific calendar proposal, freeing 100% of the taxis to work in the capital taking advantage of the arrival of the large cruise ships, which is also a good opportunity for them. and also for Santa Cruz to guarantee the service.”
He recalled that “if they deny that this problem exists, do not forget that in January there will be 36 fewer licenses on the street with the rescue and, most likely, another 37 will be lost before July, that is, there will be almost 70 fewer licenses in 2024, so the calendar will have to change to ensure taxi service in the city.”
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for Elite Taxi, Miguel Ojeda, pointed out that “the problem is that the councilor wants to change the current calendar, approved a few months ago, based on her interests, when the majority of workers approved maintaining 80% of vehicles. on the street. In addition, there is a socioeconomic study that says that in Santa Cruz there are 150 licenses left over, so no more than 580 can be put into circulation.”
Currently, taxi drivers in the capital work twice from Monday to Friday and alternate weekends, according to the letters on the license plate. “Now the City Council wants us not to free and go from 580 licenses to 733 circulating daily, which is an abuse and an unnecessary expense because there will not be work for everyone at the same time. The strike notice responds to the sabotage that the City Council is doing to us,” Ojeda alleged.
I warn you that, on the other hand, not all taxi drivers support it, because, according to Zebenzui Pérez, from the Gremial del Taxi (association of self-employed workers), “the arguments are nonsense and Élite Taxi wants to divide the sector with deception and cheap populism. “We advocate having freedom to liberate, but without lies.”
