If you didn’t get your European getaway this summer, you could have pretended that you were in France while in the District this week. That country is known for its strikes – greves – in which workers use a one or two day refusal to work as a method of union demand, must have exported a bit of its social flavor into the DC Dominion on Cabdrivers.
For at least the third time this year, DC taxicabs have gone on strike for reasons we don’t fully understand. Last Tuesday, for example, two cab driver unions influenced some 80% of cabs to participate in a strike protest, causing quite a bit of trouble for those looking for overground transportation.
Some reports stated that the DC Council was looking to implement a medallion system (now we’ve moved from France to NYC). Taxi drivers claim this is a limitation on their freedom to work and costs them more money, but doesn’t it also discourage (or disallow) competition from entering an already seemingly saturated market? But more likely, the strikers were still angry over the fare change from zones to meters and the Council’s refusal to allow cabs to pick up multiple fares.
