TAXI FOCUS from South Korea
SOUTH KOREAN DRIVER SETS HIMSELF ON FIRE TO PROTEST RIDE-SHARING APP
A South Korean taxi driver set himself alight on Monday 10 Decem- ber in protest over an Uber-like ride-sharing service being introduced by the country’s largest mobile chat app. The 57-year- old driver, surnamed Choi, died of his injuries. South Korean taxi drivers have angrily protested against KakaoTalk’s carpooling service, saying it threatens their jobs and livelihoods. US giant Uber has only a minimal pres- ence in the country, offering only taxi and licensed-hire vehicle hailing after closing its main ride-sharing service in 2015 in the face of an extensive backlash
from
drivers. But Kakao is used by more than 80 per cent of South Koreans, and in recent months tens of thousands of taxi drivers have held mass rallies in Seoul to con- demn its upcoming carpooling service, which was due to launch last month. The South China Morning Post reports that Choi set himself alight in front of the national parliament in Seoul after complaining about the carpooling service, according to the police and Yonhap news agency. He had told another taxi driver he wanted to set himself on fire “because of the Kakao carpool”, Yonhap news agency quoted the man as saying. He poured fuel over himself while sitting in his vehicle and set himself alight, police said. He was taken to hospital but died hours later. Choi was a leader of the union branch at his firm in Seoul.
The driver doused himself with fuel inside his vehicle
from Thailand
SIX SECURITY GUARDS ATTACK BANGKOK DRIVER FOR OVERCHARGING
from Russia
RUSSIAN TAXI DRIVERS LAUNCH PROTEST IN CENTRAL MOSCOW OVER LOW WAGES
A group of taxi drivers joined a spontaneous protest in central Moscow after one of their colleagues announced a hunger strike over poor working conditions and low wages, as anger among drivers mounts against taxi aggregators. Earlier this year, taxi drivers set off a smoke bomb outside the office of the
Yandex.Taxi aggregator in Moscow and distributed leaflets
JANUARY 2019
Shocking footage shows the moment six shopping mall security guards attacked a taxi driver - who tried to illegally overcharge pas- sengers. According to NewsFlare, the cabbie was waiting outside the bustling Terminal 21 building in central Bangkok, Thailand, when he repeatedly refused to accept customers using the legally- required meter - a common scam targeting tourists. Security guards received a complaint about the driver and con- fronted him - before a mass brawl erupted on a recent Wednesday afternoon at 4pm. The driver in blue shirt fought back as the work- ers punched, kicked and hit him with poles. Police investigated and the taxi driver, Khettikun Rattana, and one of the security guards, Montri Sitabian, were arrested and each fined 500 Thai Baht. The operators of the shopping mall said in a statement that the security guards in the video had been sub-contracted by an exter- nal company. They said: ''The incident happened on Wednesday at 4pm after a taxi driver did not accept passengers, which is a contravention of our rules. Taxis that collect passengers from the shopping area must use a meter. Security guards asked the taxi driver to leave the area to allow other taxis to collect passengers. “The driver then walked out of his vehicle and started the fight by assaulting the guard. Terminal 21 has started an investigation and we have asked the security company that hires the guards to disci- pline them according to our rules.'' Police from the Thong Lor district police station covering the area said that the two men had been charged with “fighting in public”.
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calling the company “bloodsuckers” in a protest against the company’s rising commission fees. A taxi driver who launched the protest with a five-day hunger strike from his parked car in central Moscow on a recent Friday was hospitalised after falling ill, the
360tv.ru news website reported.
“I am not a killer. I am not going to work for 12-14 hours in a row, because it is not safe,” the driver, who said his name was Roman, was quoted as saying by the news outlet hours before reportedly being taken away in an ambulance. “Doctors say that a driver who works for more than ten hours in a row poses the same [danger] as a drunk driver,” he added. According to the Moscow Times, ten of his colleagues who report- edly parked their cars to join the protest on the busy Nikitsky Boulevard were detained. Andrei Titov, the head of a local association of taxi drivers, told the outlet that drivers have long been unhappy over the deterioration of working conditions. “Drivers’ strikes have already taken place every year, with zero results,” he was cited as saying. “No one sees them or hears them,” he added. Russia’s largest taxi aggregator,
Yandex.Taxi, merged with Uber last year, which brought the company an estimated monthly revenue of $131 million in Russia and five of its neighbours.
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