Bologna, 13 May 2024 – After months of controversy and attacks, the Bolognese taxi driver Roberto Mantovani he was expelled from the Cotabo cooperative following a disciplinary measure. This was made known by the coop itself, which in a note explains how the decision was arrived at following repeated conduct of disseminating untrue news, aimed at explicitly damaging the reputation of the cooperative, its administrators and other members” . Added to this, by Mantovani – better known as RedSox – a media campaign “to openly denigrate the cooperative”.
But let’s take a step back. The taxi driver is very well known under the Two Towers because for a long time publishes his earnings on social media daily and denounces his colleagues who do not want to be paid with Pos. In the past Mantovani had found himself with the taxi’s tires flat and had received threatening letters. The disciplinary measure, however, as underlined by the cooperative, does not concern the Pos affair, but the behavior that the taxi driver has shown over the months towards the cooperative and his colleagues.
Reasons why, last December, Mantovani had been suspended (the member never appealed the sanction) from service for one week. In particular, Cotabo accuses RedSox of “having first envisaged, and then actually launched, a repeated media campaign (in the context of which the imminent publication of a book was also announced) to openly denigrate the cooperativeif some of his requests were not accepted, including the publication of a press release signed by the cooperative but on the basis of contents expressly indicated by him, and the payment of a large sum of money (we are talking about some tens of thousands of euros, ed.) addressed to him personally, without there being an objective reason”.
Now, after months of friction, the cooperative’s decision has arrived: “In light – concludes the note – of the profound and incurable opposition to the basic principles of the associationdemonstrated first and foremost by the member’s intention to obtain personal advantages to the detriment of the collective interests of the cooperative, by the reiteration of conduct over time and by specific recurrencewhich denotes a total lack of awareness and continuing lack of will to comply with the cooperative’s regulatory regulations, it was deemed that a sanction other than exclusion could not be applied”.
The response from the taxi driver was not long in coming, saying he was “speechless and dazed”, but determined “not to go back”.
