Brussels taxis held a protest against Uber on Sunday, with their campaign “Your fare at half-price”. They feel that urban car-sharing company Uber is unfair competition. Taxis will only charge their customers enough to cover social security, tax and car insurance costs. They want to show that Uber’s prices are only viable if a driver cheats the system.
“We should have driven for free to send a strong message. But our drivers don’t want to stoop to their level. They want to respect social and fiscal legislation”, says Pierre Steenberghen, the spokesman for the National Taxi Company Group.
“We want to prove that due to the prices these cowboy services charge, those who respect the law cannot earn a living as a taxi driver. On Sunday, taxi drivers and their respective employers will pay all the other cost themselves (vehicle maintenance, fuel, net salary, vehicle depreciation, telephone centre etc). But if they did that every day, they’d go bankrupt”.
The taxi sector also wants to warn of the risks of “uberisation”. They claim to be innovative and save users money by sharing cars, but they don’t respect the law on Labour, avoid tax, and don’t respect the rules on quality and security.
(Source: Belga)
