Taxi drivers are going on a 24-hour strike today, Thursday, following a decision by the Taxi Drivers Union (SATA).

The workers will hold a rally on Kavala Avenue at 10 am on Thursday, and then a march will follow to the Ministry of Transport. The strike started at 6am on Thursday and will end at 6am on Friday.

According to the SATA announcement “attribution of responsibility for the national tragedy of Tempe, without discounts and offsets, is a demand not only of our industry, but of the entire Greek society. SATA participated in all the protests that were organized and calls for safe public transport. “Let’s go wherever it goes” and the commercialization of social services such as transport cannot be a guideline of government work.

The taxi industry experiences on a daily basis the greed and rage for greater profit, from companies that – illegally – provide urban transport services. The Ministry of Transport proved in the most incontrovertible way that he does not “listen” to the voices of thousands of professionals. With the exception of the fee increase, no other demand of our industry was not only not implemented, but not even discussed.

Problems of an economic nature (tax-free at 12,000 euros, adjustment of pre-determined price for the route Athens Airport – City Center, commercial fuel, subsidies for all types of cars), of a commercial nature (removal of the mandatory registration of new purely electric cars from 2026, access to bus lanes for heavy goods vehicles taxi), competition issues (proper implementation of the digital platform for the contracts of the E.I.X. and creation of a register for the rentals with a driver, suppression of project eavesdropping, clear and without gray areas separation of the services provided by the Taxi, the rental self-driving car and taxi booking apps) were blatantly ignored by the Department of Transport.

The conscious indifference the government’s slow death of taxis mirrors the neoliberal policy the government has imposed on all small and medium businesses. If we don’t react to this policy now, if we pretend it doesn’t touch us, if we consider it an excessive and pointless reaction to “bother” the government, then we are not worthy of the trust that the Athenian colleagues showed us with their vote.
We will never be submissive. We will disturb even if they are disturbed. We will shout even if they don’t hear. We will show them even if they are hiding. The taxi will doWhether they want to or not.

On Thursday, March 23, 2023, the taxis of Athens will remind the Ministry of Transport, what it did not do for our industry, what it did for the rentals with a driver and how with its own tolerance it helps multinational applications to flowthey make the taxi driver’s salary”.