Striking cab drivers back to work
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Xinhua, August 4, 2011
Striking cab drivers in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou returned to work Thursday after three days of protests that prompted the local government to promise to hike fares.
![Local residents pass by taxis parked along a street on Monday. The drivers of the cabs have gone on strike over rising gasoline prices and road congestion in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/China Daily]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20110804/0019b93bd68d0fa48fea01.jpg "Local residents pass by taxis parked along a street on Monday. The drivers of the cabs have gone on strike over rising gasoline prices and road congestion in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/China Daily]") |
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Local residents pass by taxis parked along a street on Monday. The drivers of the cabs have gone on strike over rising gasoline prices and road congestion in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/China Daily] |
The cabbies had begun to take passengers again Thursday morning. They were no longer gathering at different downtown areas to air their grievances, as they had done over the past three days.
"Now that the government has pledged to adjust fares, we have decided to resume work. We hope the new polices can be carried out as soon as possible to relieve our burden for living," said a representative of the striking cabbies who would only give his surname, Chen.
The strike started rush hour Monday morning. About 1,500 striking cabbies, mostly from central Henan Province, during the three days voiced their complaints about skyrocketing food, gasoline and housing prices, and unchanged cab fares.
In response, the city government pledged to hike cab fares by the end of October and provide cab drivers temporary subsidies. According to the new polices, cabbies will receive a one-yuan (0.16 U.S. dollar) subsidy for each trip, starting Monday.
"Traffic authorities have looked into adjusting cab fares for months, listening to the opinions of many cab drivers and their employers. We are now preparing to hold a public hearing on that," said Wang Yichuan, deputy director of the Hangzhou Municipal Traffic Bureau.
"According to our estimates, a cab driver can make an average 42 passenger trips every day, which means the driver can get a subsidy of more than 1,200 yuan a month," he said.
Cab drivers have welcomed the new polices, although some of them said the cab fares should have been raised long before and the one-yuan subsidy was too small.
Hangzhou, which is famous for its scenic spots like the picturesque West Lake, has nearly 9,000 cabs.
China has seen a number of cab strikes across the country due to gas price hikes and worsening traffic jams over the past two years. The latest one on June 27 was in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, where nearly 200 drivers aired their complaints about the unfair recall of their operator's licenses by a local cab company.
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