Organisers estimate that over 1,500 taxi drivers performed a slow-drive protest outside Leinster House in Dublin on Saturday afternoon, as the industry protested against Uber’s proposed fixed-fare model.
Early this month, the transportation company announced it was launching a fixed-price taxi service in Ireland. Users can choose to agree a maximum fare in advance of their trip, rendering the taxi meter irrelevant if it ticks over that number.
According to Uber’s website, if the meter price is higher than the taxi fixed price, the driver will receive the fixed price. In that instance, the taxi essentially operates as a hackney that is still required to use a meter by National Transport Authority (NTA) standards. Efforts by drivers and taxi associations to communicate with Uber have so far been unsuccessful.
Drivers involved in Saturday’s protest have been monitoring the effect of fixed prices for the past two weeks. Ordinarily, they say 12 per cent of a driver’s fare will go back to Uber as commission if a customer books through the app. Since the new model’s introduction, that figure has risen to an average of 30 per cent.
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“They sent us an email and told us that’s how it’s going to be,” says David Mitchell, a Dublin taxi driver involved in organising Saturday’s protest. “I personally shut down the app and deleted my account a week later.
“I go back to the 30 per cent loss of earnings. We already work 55 to 60 hours a week. I can’t go out and work 80 hours a week. I just can’t. None of us can – it’s not safe.”
There are concerns around how the fixed-price model is allowed under Irish regulations. Though Uber employs the strategy in different countries around the world, its business in Ireland has previously had to bend to the laws governing the industry here.
“You sign a contract with them,” says Michael Sharkey, another protest organiser and driver. “Apparently, it’s buried deep down in the contract that they are enabled to change the working practices whenever they like. Our rules for taxis, hackneys and limousines are some of the strictest in Europe and they’re circumventing it.
“Under regulations, the only people who can fix a fare with a customer is the driver. A dispatch operator is not allowed to fix a fare.”
Routes for fixed fares are calculated in advance, and drivers are supposed to follow it without deviation. Naturally, a road closure for an accident or an unexpected bout of intense traffic is detrimental for the driver as a result. The percentage loss on earnings is made bigger for longer journeys, where fixed fares offer a bigger discount for customers.
The slow-drive protest was carried out for over three hours on Saturday. Drivers chose a weekend day to limit the impact on the public, but further protests may be more obstructive if there is no change to their situation.
They hope politicians will take note. Sharkey and Mitchell are encouraged by the many taxi drivers that have rallied around the cause.
“The support that we’ve got on this project has been amazing,” Sharkey says. “You have drivers from every ethnicity, from every city, have come together. There are guys printing labels, printing stickers without being asked. It has really drawn the community together.”
