For 24 hours no taxis all over the country. Several trade union acronyms have proclaimed one national strike on Friday 22 October 2021, day of arrivals and departures at airports and railway stations. Taxi drivers from all over the country will stop in the main Italian squares to protest against the use of the rental with driver authorizations, which "abusively take away space and work" from the drivers of white cars. The protest will then culminate in a big one demonstration in Rome, under the headquarters of the Ministry of Economic Development and then continue at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility, former Ministry of Transport.
Therefore, at the center of the protest there would be apps like Uber which also allow private individuals and NCC companies to replace taxi drivers at much more advantageous prices than the drivers of white cars.
In detail, the strike was called by the trade union organizations UGL Taxi, Federtaxi Cisal, USB Taxi, TAM, SATAM, CLAAI, OR.SA Taxi, Unimpresa, ATI Taxi and the Associazione Tutela Legale. In the absence of concrete answers, the taxi drivers threaten to repeat the protest in a "strong and pressing" manner, in compliance with the legislation governing strikes.
"The rental with driver in fact it carries out the taxi service, with the aggravating circumstance of not having any kind of obligation to protect users – reads the press release announcing the strike on 22 October -. Merely speculative dynamics, integrated by the action of multinational companies, attack users and increasingly relegate taxis to a marginal role and in an enclosure that makes the performance of our work unsustainable. Among other things, this act in absolute disregard of rules and provisions produces tax-free profits that migrate towards tax havens, with no small amount of damage for our country. All while every support measure for taxi drivers is reduced and subjected to incomprehensible constraints ".
At the end of the press release, the request for a direct intervention by the Government to the Council of State against the sentence of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court n. 9364/2021 issued last August 11, together with the immediate issue of a DPCM regulating technological platforms as required by Law 12/2019. According to the trade unions, all this would make it possible to stop illegal activity.
The sentence of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court granted the authorization to foreign rental companies with driver already operating in other EU countries, by virtue of the primacy of Community law over national law, to carry out the service in our country without the need to request the mandatory municipal permit. Obviously this has put more fuel on the fire, igniting the spirits of taxi drivers who complain about the lack of regulation in the sector. On the other hand, citizens often find themselves paying too much for rides.
