When the going gets tough ...

By Zhang Haizhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-12 09:33

Cabbie Fu Chaoguo drives one of the latest car models in the city, a Ford Mondeo that enables him to charge higher fare compared with older vehicles.

But the 36-year-old Chongqing native still took part in a strike last Monday to protest the high car rental fees charged by his taxi company.

Instead of running on busy streets, taxis are parked on a courtyard in Chongqing on November3 when cabbies of China's fourth largest city went on strike, citing rampant illegal taxies, insufficient compressed natural gas supply and hefty fees charged by the cab companies. [Xinhua]

"I initially thought I could make more money driving the new model because the fare charged is higher," Fu told China Daily on Saturday.

"But it doesn't bring in more money, compared with other taxi models."

Despite a flag-down fare of 7 yuan ($1.03), 2 yuan more than other taxis, Fu's Ford also charges passengers 2.4 yuan per km traveled while the other models charge only 1.8 yuan for the distance.

To drive the new Ford, Fu paid 150,000 yuan to his taxi company late last year to share the use of the car with another cabbie for six years.

A new Ford Mondeo costs less than that amount in the market, Fu said.

According to the contract, 50,000 yuan of the 150,000 yuan will be refunded to them when the contract ends in 2013.

Apart from that, by his calculation, Fu and his partner need to pay about 100,000 yuan to the company each year.

In total, they have to pay 700,000 yuan to the company in six years.

"We work for more than 12 hours a day and make only peanuts, while the company enjoys most of what we drivers deserve," Fu said.

This "exploitation" by the company is what drove him and other cabbies to go on strike last week.

There are about 8,000 cabs in the country's fourth-largest city, belonging to 34 taxi companies.

The cabbies reportedly launched the two-day strike to protest insufficient supplies of compressed natural gas that fuels most cabs in the city, competition from unlicensed cabs, high fines for traffic violations and the unfair division of the returns between drivers and companies.

No cabs were seen running in Sanya, a major tourist city in the island province of Hainan, on Monday, while Yongdeng county in Gansu province also saw many of its cabbies stage a strike the same day.

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