Service taxis in 24-hour strike

By Athena Karsera

INTERCITY buses should be packed tomorrow after service taxi drivers yesterday officially announced they will be staging a 24-hour strike.

A joint announcement from the Sek and Peo unions yesterday said that the management of a new company made up of the Kyriakos, Karydas, Makris, Kypros and Acropolis service taxi companies had still not agreed on provident fund terms for its drivers.

Management insists that the drivers should work under the same conditions of their previous individual companies collective contracts.

But the drivers say the staff of the new Pancyprian Taxi Company want to work under the conditions set in the collective agreements of the Kyriakos, Karydas and Makris companies.

These three firms contribute to their employees’ providence funds, while Kypros and Acropolis do not. The unions said their demands also included the Kypros and Acropolis drivers being compensated for unpaid provident fund contributions.

The companies are due to start operating jointly tomorrow as the Pancyprian Company, and today is the last day they are bound to their previous individual collective contracts.

“Unfortunately, despite repeated negotiations between the unions and the companies and with a Labour Ministry arbitrator, the companies refuse to fully implement the collective agreement,” the union statement said yesterday.

It said that the decision to take strike action had been taken at a general assembly on October 22, dependent on subsequent negotiations ending without progress being made.

Another general assembly will be held tomorrow to decide on what further measures to take.

The unions apologised for any inconvenience caused, but said they had exhausted every other avenue “for the obtaining of our rights”.

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