Transport group leaders against fare increase strike action

LEADERS OF of two of the island’s transport groups in Kingston have declared they will not be supporting any form of industrial action against the Government’s deferment of the 16 per cent increase in taxi fare, which was slated to take effect today.

Taxi operators are also being encouraged not to resort to demanding the 19 per cent increase that was granted last October.

The 16 per cent fare increase was the second tranche of a 35 per cent fare rise granted to taxi operators last year.

However, the finance ministry, in a press release last Thursday, advised that transport operators have agreed to delay the implementation of higher fares.

While it was too early to garner the response of the majority of the operators to the postponement of the fare increase, some operators were reportedly upset at the news and have lashed out at the Government and the transport groups’ leaders.

However, while there have not been any wide-scale talks of a taxi strike, a few operators have hinted that they would like to register their displeasure with the deferment by protesting.

Asked whether or not he would be supporting a strike, president of the Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services (TODSS), Egerton Newman, said, “Absolutely not! We have advised them that this is not the way to go.”

President and communications director at All Voice Transportation Group, Lorraine Oscar Finnikin, said he had made it clear to his members and to other taxi operators that he would not be leading or supporting any strike.

“I have said any contemplation of any industrial action by the sector, don’t look to Mr Finnikin to participate,” he said.

Finnikin went further to say that he told one operator who contacted him about leading a strike, “That if the demonstration is to save my son’s life he is going to die because I am not leading any demonstration.”

Newman, however, is confident that the operators will accept the reason given for the delay in the fair increase.

“I think they understand and I think there will be no demonstration and we are going to be having continued discussion with them and public education on the subject and, of course, they will understand and I think all will go well,” he said.

Opted out of 19 per cent increase

At the same time, he warned taxi operators not to go ahead and implement the 19 per cent fare increase that they had been delaying to take up with the 16 per cent in April.

According to him, some 8,000 operators had opted not to take up the increase last year.

“We were encouraging them to take it up but they refused because they say the commuters can’t afford it.

“But we are saying to them now if you didn’t take it then, you can’t take it now because it’s going to create more challenge on the commuters. After all, they hear the announcement that the fare increase has been deferred and now you are going to be saying to them ‘pay the first increase’. We don’t see it working that way,” Newman said.

The postponement followed a meeting with Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr Nigel Clarke, Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, Daryl Vaz, members of the Transport Operators Steering Committee, other transport sector leaders and government officials.

“In asking the sector for a deferral of the expected 16 per cent rate increase, Minister Clarke acknowledged that the Government recognised the hardships faced by the sector and what a fare increase would mean for their operations, but cited the need to maintain inflation in single digits in order to keep the economy on course; noting that the transportation sector has one of the largest impacts on inflation,” it was stated in a release.

It continued: “Minister Vaz commended the operators for their understanding and their acceptance of the deferral and gave his commitment to continue to work collaboratively with them to identify and agree other incentives. In so doing, he mandated the Transport Operators Steering Committee to meet and design a comprehensive transportation incentive framework that would take into account measures that would have less adverse impacts on inflation.”

Vaz also reportedly assured the sector that the replenishing of rolling stock through an adjustment to the motor vehicle import policy; implementation of the driver training programme; and upgrading of transport centres across the island would be addressed in this financial year.

According to Newman, he has accepted the reason given by the Government about the impact that the increase would have on the economy at this time and brought back the message to his members.

Finnikin, for his part, said he too has been advising his members and other operators, based on what the finance ministry said, that if the 16 per cent was to be implemented, it would ruin the gains on the economy and that it would not be beneficial for them to take up the fare increase and destroy the gains made with regard to inflation.

In the interim, there was consensus between both group leaders that there are other things that the Government can look at and grant the operators as incentives, which they will present to the Government in a meeting next week.

“We explained the importance of addressing the problems that we have in transport centres islandwide, specifically in the Kingston Metropolitan Region (KMTR), the whole issue of training that has been announced from last year but has not been touched, and the $200 million revolving loan that was announced last year. Put back those things on the table, look at them as low hanging fruits and let us have (them) in lieu of a fare increase,” Newman said.

Adding to that proposal, Finnikin said he would be asking for the removal of yellow lines in some areas so that taxi operators will be able to pick up their passengers without being ticketed, and for the police to refrain from ticketing the operators in the Spencer James Park in Half Way Tree, which he says to the best of his knowledge has not been gazetted as a road. Also, he said he would like to make submissions for possible amendments to the Road Traffic Act, which his group never got the opportunity to do.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com