Cabbies in Sanya rally for 3rd straight day

By Lan Tian and Huang Yiming (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-13 07:58

Dozens of taxi drivers in Sanya, Hainan province refused to take customers and rallied for a third straight day Wednesday to press for relief from rising costs and illegal competition in the latest cab-industry unrest to hit the country.

The protest in the southern island province, comes on the heels of a similar action by 9,000 drivers in Chongqing municipality.

A sign in a taxi in Sanya, Hainan province, reads "Sorry. Out of Service." [Huang Yibing]

A spokesman for the Sanya municipal government, who would give only his surname as Chen, said dozens of cab drivers gathered outside the city government building on Wednesday.

They called for the release of 28 detained drivers suspected of smashing the cars of drivers who refused to participate in the strike, Chen said.

More than 300 cab drivers gathered in front of the government office in Sanya on Tuesday, the Xinhua News Agency said.

The local government held three meetings and began to negotiate with representatives of 1,050 drivers on Tuesday.

"Taxi drivers are expected to resume work in two or three days," Liu Lan, an official with the publicity department of the Party's Sanya committee, told China Daily .

"The company ordered cabbies to end the strike. However, afraid of being assaulted, half of our cabbies haven't resumed work," Luo Miao, a driver of Tianxing taxi company, told China Daily on Wednesday.

After preliminary negotiations, the government decided that from Wednesday, all taxi companies in Sanya should reduce monthly rental fees from 7,200 yuan ($1,000) to 5,300 yuan, which some companies have ignored.

Companies would be forbidden to operate if they did not follow the rule, it said.

Furthermore, the government will crack down on unlicensed taxis.

The transport bureau will reward informants 500 yuan for reporting unlicensed taxis and 10,000 yuan for reporting unlicensed taxis' supporters.

Chen Zhibang, Sanya's transport chief, admitted the bureau was responsible for some of the problems.

Meanwhile, all taxi drivers in Yongdeng county of Gansu province returned to work on Wednesday after the local government promised to crack down on unlicensed cabs within 10 days, Xinhua reported.

On Monday, taxi drivers in Yongdeng staged a strike near the county's transport bureau office building.

About 160 of the county's 280 cabs manned picket lines because of competition from some 700 unlicensed cabs.