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Union backs cabbie's strike

But protest gets little sympathy for claiming the right to rip off

By Hilda Hoy
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 28th, 2007 issue

ČTK
Zdeněk Ponert spent 11 days on hunger strike outside City Hall.
A taxi driver who spent 11 days on hunger strike in front of City Hall is vowing to keep fighting to charge more than three times what’s allowed for cabs, even after his strike sent him to the hospital.
Zdeněk Ponert, 42, is now back at home after spending a week and a half camped out on the sidewalk beside City Hall in Old Town. He began a hunger strike Feb. 13 to protest fare regulations he says bleed cabbies dry while filling the pockets of those who control the industry.
Two Sides to the Story
  • Zden?k Ponert, taxi driver: "All costs are the burden of the individual taxi driver ... [and] there are so many fees that it's hard to make any money." Some drivers are forced to work up to 16 hours per day, he says
  • Rudolf Blažek, city councilor and taxi services committee chairman: "The prices that conform to the real costs of operating are ... 28 K? per kilometer and 6 K? per minute for waiting. ... The fact that there are more than 3,500 taxi drivers in Prague, and apparently they are not going bankrupt, goes against Mr. Ponert's assertion"
Speaking from his hospital bed Feb. 23, Ponert said he had begun feeling dizzy earlier that afternoon. He lost consciousness, suffered a seizure and was rushed by ambulance to the hospital.
A day before, however, he was in good spirits, saying at the time, “I have no sense of hunger right now.”
He’d been passing his days and nights sitting in a lawn chair, swaddled in thick layers of clothing, tucked into a sleeping bag and draped with a giant yellow rain slicker. For 11 days, he drank only water or tea with milk and honey and sucked on the occasional glucose lozenge.
Ponert is one of a handful of taxi drivers, working for different operators, who for years have openly charged customers up to 99 Kč ($4.60) per kilometer (0.6 mile), despite a law that caps the fee at 28 Kč. This fee doesn’t cover drivers’ costs, leaving many with an income well below the Prague average while cab operators grow rich, Ponert claims.
Although many independent cabbies charge whatever they can get away with, Ponert says he makes at most 15,000 Kč a month.
When the city became aware of this group’s policy, it began a targeted crackdown, fining some drivers and pulling the licenses of others. Fed up with this “bullying,” Ponert went public.
“I’m not here for myself only,” he said from the sidewalk. “I’m here for all the taxi drivers who are forced to live on 10,000–15,000 Kč per month. It’s not an easy life.”
A notorious industry
But his plight may not pluck the heartstrings of many Prague residents. Cabbies here are notorious for overcharging, and most travel guides contain warnings about taking one of Prague’s 3,500 taxis.
“I feel sorry about that reputation, but I believe that taxi drivers are pushed into the position of being a thief,” Ponert says.
Vladimír Kuna, a spokesman for the Taxi Labor Union (OS), which represents Ponert, agrees.
“The current regulation … is absolutely insufficient. The price, based on real economic costs, should be above 45 Kč,” Kuna says. “How is the taxi driver supposed to provide for his family if he is forced to drive for a rate insufficient to even cover costs?”
What most Praguers don’t realize, OS Chairman Pavel Jelínek says, are the myriad costs that cabbies must foot. Besides car upkeep and insurance, drivers who work for firms also pay hefty fees to their operators and to radio dispatchers.
The right to pick up fares at Prague Airport can cost cabbies 18,000 Kč a month to their operators. A position on Wenceslas Square might cost 5,000 Kč monthly, Jelínek says.
The average driver might make 20,000–50,000 Kč a month, but he ends up taking home only 8,000–10,000 Kč, he says.
The OS intends to file a legal complaint against the city soon on behalf of its members. If that fails, Kuna says the union will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Rudolf Blažek, city councilor and chairman of the taxi services committee, says these protests are out of line. “City Hall does not manage, run or regulate taxi service. … We only supervise that law.”
But the city has heard the concerns of the OS: “A few days ago, I asked the transport and finance ministers in a letter for their departments to change their cold, unconcerned attitude to the solution of the Prague taxi problem,” Blažek says.
In the meantime, overcharging cabbies stain the city’s reputation, hurt its residents and thwart City Hall’s efforts to clean up the industry, he says.
Their own way
All this doesn’t change the fact that Ponert and his colleagues have been unabashedly breaking the law.
Their policy is to charge on a sliding scale of 15–99 Kč per kilometer, depending on the length of the ride, the location in the city and the type of car. They claim to post the maximum rate clearly on the car door, and drivers use a meter — adjustable for different rates — to measure distance.
Customers are informed of these rates if they ask, Ponert says.
Fashioning himself as something of a vigilante crusading for the rights of oppressed laborers, Ponert denies these inflated rates are a rip-off. “In 16 years of driving a taxi, I have not overcharged anyone,” he says.
But the city has little sympathy for Ponert’s crusade, councilor Blažek says. “[He] has lost his credibility thanks to his attitude toward law abidance.”
Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Hilda Hoy can be reached at hhoy@praguepost.com


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