One of the industries greatest faults is the lack of foresight and the expectation that somehow it will all work out in our favour.
Even though the cab trade is no longer considered to be an integral part of the public transport policy, we still resign ourselves to it being something we shouldn’t make a stand about.
The trade’s removal from crucial elements of The MTS reduces us to being treated no differently to a car driven for private purposes. The consequences of which, allows the local authorities to exclude us from future traffic modelling schemes. If we fail to recognise the seriousness of these punitive policies then we have big problems
It’s got to be said, current work levels are pretty buoyant, however, only a few can grasp the nucleus of why this is the case. To emphasise somewhat, the decommissioning of thousands of taxis reduces the fleet to 19,000.
A shortage of available cabs will leave the trade unable to fulfil its remit as an official, city-wide taxi service. And yet this dire situation has everyone jumping for joy as though the waves from an oceanic drought have come lapping back to the shore.
As far as the trade goes, we desperately need to find a better system for governance. Many of the irreversible risks that now threaten our trade originate from a rapid pace of industrial development coupled with the monopolisation of emerging technology and an adamance by TfL not to enforce existing legislation.
There is a model shift happening in front of our eyes and we refuse to do anything about it.
Conveniently for TfL, the system currently in place to represent the trade - and effectively manage many of issues we are facing is done by using yesterday’s tools and by the same people.
As a consequence, the necessary action is either not taken or is taken too late, while the problems and risks the industry faces continue to grow and mutate.
The LTDA, UNITE & TFL are NOT apathetic or indifferent to what is happening to our industry; in fact they have a totally different agenda to the rest of us.
A Union’s philosophy has always been to retain the status quo. For the most part this is to protect their own positions, but unless they can bridge the disconnect, our industry will always be seen as a Tonka Toy bolted on to the side of technological variants like an old platform designed in another age for a totally different purpose.
If denial is our issue then there is little more I can do, or say, to convince anyone that if we don’t defend our working practices today, we won’t have the collective strength to do so tomorrow.
Just a reminder, in life we rarely get what we want. Mostly, we get what we deserve.
In might be late in the day, but the future is in our hands.
SPD
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