Hong Kong taxi drivers threaten to strike next month over ride-hailing services like Uber
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s taxi drivers have threatened a citywide strike in early March if the government fails to crack down on unlicensed ride-hailing services such as Uber.
More than 80 per cent of those present at a meeting held by the Hong Kong Tele-call Taxi Association on Wednesday agreed to hold a five-day strike starting March 5 if the government fails to commit to a crack down on ride-hailing services by next Wednesday.
Hong Kong is considering regulating online ride-hailing platforms like Uber with proposals to introduce a licensing regime. A proposal on the regulatory details is expected this year.
“More than 80 per cent of those at the meeting agreed that if a satisfactory response is not received by February 19, we will announce a strike on March 5 involving several thousand taxi owners and drivers for at least five days,” said the association’s chairperson Wong Yu-ting in a Chinese-language memo issued shortly after the Wednesday meeting.
Wong is expected to present the industry’s proposal to the Transport Advisory Committee next Wednesday, the deadline for the taxi union’s decision. The proposal will be finalised this Sunday, and then presented to members of the association for signatures.
The union on Wednesday also slammed “heartless and unjust” policies and “11 years of unfair competition” that had left taxi owners facing bankruptcy.
Competition
The embattled cab industry has railed against ride-hailing services, saying the largely unregulated platform posed unfair competition to taxi drivers.
Complaints about taxis have far exceeded those about any other public transport mode since 2011, the earliest year that annual reports of the Transport Advisory Committee’s complaints unit are available on its website.
In 2023, complaints against taxis made up 43 per cent of all those received when considering figures per million passenger journeys. Complaints about the MTR accounted for just 0.39 per cent.
In response to the industry’s ultimatum, the Transport Department urged calm from the industry and asked it to “prioritise the interests of residents.” It also said it had arranged a meeting between the taxi industry and online ride-hailing platforms on Wednesday.
“The department hopes that the sector will think of ways to improve… services in the meeting next week. We will roll out regulatory suggestions within this year after fully considering the opinion of all stakeholders,” a department spokesperson said in Chinese.
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();The department also said that it would formulate legislative proposals on the regulation of online vehicle platforms within this year, after “fully considering the findings of the study and listening to the views of stakeholders.”
Hong Kong laid out a proposal last December to mandate in-vehicle surveillance cameras, GPS, dashcams, and electronic payment systems in taxis.
A new penalty points system came into force in September, which penalises malpractice such as overcharging and service refusals. Any drivers incurring 15 or more points in two years will be disqualified.
The strike announcement came a week after cab-hailing platform HKTaxi announced it would cease operations on April 1. HKTaxi is encouraging its users to migrate to Uber, offering newly registered users from its platform HK$100 off for the first five Uber taxi trips.
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