Hundreds of taxi drivers went on strike yesterday in a city in central China, angry over a new government-imposed license fee, local drivers and a rights group said.
The streets of Suizhou, in Hubei Province, were empty as hundreds of drivers kept their cars at home. The city has 550 licensed taxi drivers, a government notice said.
“There’s not a single cab running on the roads of Suizhou now. We will not stop the strike until the government meets our demand, which is that they remove their fee,” said a driver who only gave his surname, Chen.
He did not want to be further identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
It was the latest round of protests by taxi drivers in several parts of China upset at increased costs and unlicensed competition.
The unrest highlights workers’ increasing anxiety over their incomes and job security as the Chinese economy slows.
News about the global financial crisis and plunging markets is also adding to concerns.
The Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, a China-based activist organization, said in a statement that a small group of taxi drivers gathered near the city’s rail station and another went to the city government to present a petition.
The Suizhou government announced last week that taxi drivers would have to pay a fee of 4,000 yuan (US$58) before the end of the year to keep their taxi license or it would be confiscated, the Suizhou Daily said.
The new fee is an attempt by the government to regulate the market, as previously free business licenses were getting illegally resold among drivers for as high as 260,000 yuan, the article said.
“Many of the drivers are not running their cars today. The fee is a bit too much because our business hasn’t been great, the market is poorly managed,” said a driver surnamed Zhang, who did not want to give his first name.
The protest comes on the heels of a strike in Chongqing by 9,000 taxi drivers earlier this month over rental fees and fuel shortages.
It also prompted scores of drivers in other parts of the country — including hundreds in the southern city of Shantou last week — to take similar action.
Zhang Li, a woman who answered the telephone at the Suizhou government office, said officials had not received any information about the strike, and referred queries to the traffic management bureau.
A man who only gave his surname, Guan, at the traffic management bureau said they had not noticed the strike and refused to answer any questions.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS