Taxi drivers end strike early, to meet minister next week (Update)

TAXI drivers cut short an island-wide strike on Friday, which involved road closures, after the transport minister arranged to see them next week to discuss their grievances.

Their protest started at 6.30am with cabbies parking their vehicles on main streets, and the island’s airports, protesting over their work conditions.

It ended at around 9am after Transport Minister Marios Demetriades arranged to see them next week to discuss their demands.

One of their main grievances is the need to crack down on illegal cabbies, or pirates, as they call them, and the high cost of running a taxi, including road tax and fuel.

The chairman of the Pancyprian taxi federation wondered why they had not been invited to talks before the strike.

“Where were these gentlemen in the past 40 days,” Dinos Constantinou said, noting that they had announced the protest on December 24.

He said it was once again proven in Cyprus that “you can only solve your problems with strikes and work stoppages.”

Constantinou said cabbies have lost 50 per cent of their business in recent years while costs continued to rise.

He apologised to the public for any inconvenience caused by their protest.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.