300 Chinese Cab Drivers Hold Strike In South China
CDT blogged Guangzhou cab drivers’ calls for a strike earlier. The strike actually happened yesterday, and here is a story from AP:
About 300 taxi drivers went on strike in a southern Chinese city, smashing cars and demanding a crackdown on unlicensed taxis in the latest protest against illegal taxi competition in China.
Hundreds of cab drivers gathered Saturday in front of government buildings in Chaozhou, a city in Guangdong province, said an official Sunday from the Chaozhou city government who would only give his surname, Chen.
More than 200 taxis were parked in front of the gate of a government office as drivers sought greater enforcement against unlicensed taxis, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Chen said police detained seven people suspected of smashing cars belonging to drivers who had refused to participate in the strike.
On the Guangzhou-based Southern Daily, a related report was entitled: “Guangzhou taxi drivers collectively having dim sum, causing city residents difficulties for getting cabs” (广州出租车司机集体喝茶致市民打车难)
(In 2008, Xiamen residents successfully organized demonstrations against a chemical plant project and Chinese media also invented a term for their demonstration: “collectively taking walks.”)
Here is a Guangzhou blogger’s photo account of this event:
POSTED COMMENTS: One Response
There’s the opinion from a researcher in the Development Research Centre (that reports to the polit bureau) that this is a sign of progress
http://eastasiaforum.org/2008/11/27/china’s-economic-reforms-pushed-by-civil-society/
To quote: “When the first strike happened in Chongqing, the party chief of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, solved it in a different way to what is sometimes expected in China — to listen to the appeal of the taxi driver and reform the regulation of the government, rather than put pressure to stop the strike in the first place. These kind of examples can be seen as definite progress toward civil society in China.”