Given the various disagreements of the taxi driver union at the national level and that have been making themselves known with greater zeal since the previous year, they have decided to take to the streets, but this time, not to provide their service as they normally do, but to let the Government know Nacional, their discontent at what for them is a violation of their rights.
For this reason, they will have a strike and indefinite cessation of activities next Wednesday, February 22, throughout the national territory, with which they hope that government officials, municipal mayors and mobility secretariats will show greater interest and commitment to the requirements that they are requesting.
To this end, this important union in our country has raised a short list of requests, which focuses on the following factors:
1. Illegality and informality in transport
2. Fuel prices
3. Sanctions regime
4. Sanctions and interventions to transport authorities
The department of Risaralda is clearly no stranger to this situation and headed by its leader Olger Ceballos states that: “our intention is not to speak at all with government officials before the 22nd, however it may be, the 22F strike has no turn back”.
According to what the taxi drivers say, around a million families in Colombia depend on this industry, which have been greatly harmed thanks to the increase in illegality and the little protection of the entities in charge of regulating this type of service.
For taxi drivers, the illegal framework has been ‘romanticized’ as part of good morality, while, although they recognize that the service provided by some of its members has not been the best, they consider that a media smear that has brought very negative repercussions for the taxi industry.
The strike is scheduled to start at 5:30 am, this Wednesday, February 22, it is recommended to use alternate transportation.
Finally, they say that the cessation of activities scheduled for this Wednesday is legitimate, genuine, without political overtones, much less in order to intimidate the population, according to what they have stated, this is the last action they have left to undertake so that the officials of the different entities, pronounce themselves seriously in favor of the institutions and the legality, as far as transportation is concerned.
In order for you not to be surprised by the popular ‘trancones’, keep in mind which will be the concentration points of the taxi drivers.
1. Valher – Dosquebradas
2. Glorieta of Macro
3. Barrio San Luis from the entrance to Canaan
4. Buy it
5. Turin
6. Roundabout of Corals
REACTIONS
Jorge Valencia – Taxi Driver
“According to what the owners of the cars have told me, we are going to protest the rise in fuel and illegal transportation, I don’t know what to tell you about that, I think that everyone has the right to make money, that’s what I think”
Sebastian Atehortúa – Citizen
“I do not agree because many of us have nothing to do with it and we are going to be harmed, but it does not bother me because it is the only way that they can make themselves feel in what they ask for, although the truth is that I do not know what it is they want, but they have every right to exercise the protest”