The taxi strike scheduled for Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th June has been suspended: the taxi service will therefore be regular. The strike was called, among other things, because the representatives of the taxi drivers’ associations had not been invited by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport for a discussion after the strike of May 21st. On Tuesday, deputy minister Edoardo Rixi and the ministry’s technicians met with representatives of over 30 taxi drivers’ unions, and the negotiations led to the cancellation of the strike. The ministry did not specify whether the taxi drivers’ requests were accepted.
Both the canceled strike and the one on 21 May concerned the unions’ request to regulate the sector’s digital platforms, especially Uber, which operate in the main Italian cities and which, according to the taxi drivers’ unions, would constitute “unfair competition” to the traditional taxi service . According to the unions, it is unfair that these platforms can continuously change their rates based on demand, time and place in which they operate much more freely than traditional taxis.
Furthermore, they ask the Italian government to tighten the rules governing the issuing of driver-rental authorizations (NCC), the chauffeur-driven transport service which includes services such as Uber and whose use already has stricter rules. compared to taxis. According to taxi drivers’ unions, it has now become very common for people to request these authorizations in places where there is less demand and where it costs less to obtain them, for example in small municipalities, and then use them instead in large cities, such as Rome or Milan, where alternatives to taxis are increasingly used, especially during times of day when taxis are not available.
For years the trade unions have opposed the increase in the number of taxi licenses because they believe that this could reduce the market value of those in circulation (usually the licenses are sold to new taxi drivers by other taxi drivers, at high costs precisely because of their limited number). However, this has caused a clear lack of taxis in large cities, where they are most in demand. Last autumn Giorgia Meloni’s government introduced new rules, which taxi drivers had opposed, which provide that capital municipalities, metropolitan cities and those with airports can increase the number of licenses up to a maximum of 20 percent . For now, among the large cities, Milan has presented a new tender, also highly contested, for 450 new licenses.
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