The project reached the Deliberative Council.
The Tucumán Taxi Workers Union presented a draft bill to the Deliberative Council to regularize the private transportation of people through an electronic platform in which companies such as Uber and Sutrappa coexist. The initiative will be analyzed by the councilors and could be considered, but with modifications.
The representatives of the sector were received by Fernando Juri, president of the deliberative body, after they held a demonstration outside the building located on Monteagudo and San Martín. There, the taxi drivers presented two proposals, although one was completely discarded. It turns out that he proposed the declaration of emergency in the transportation sector for the city, in addition to a questioning of Mayor Rossana Chahla. On the other hand, the one that was taken by the councilors and will be studied in the Council’s Transportation Commission is the one that proposes that private transportation companies, such as Uber, enroll in the Single System of Public Transportation of Passengers by Automobile (Sutrappa) now. From this they can constitute a new municipal platform.
In this way, private transportation, which is currently illegal in the Province, due to the repeal of Law No. 9,352, would be regulated at the municipal level as of the approval of the ordinance. What is sought is that the only drivers authorized to provide the service are those who are registered with the Secretariat of Urban Mobility as providers of the metered rental transportation service. Regarding the rate, the taxi drivers propose that it be the enforcement authority – the aforementioned municipal office – that establishes the parameters within which the value of the service must be set through the enabled electronic platforms.
The draft presented to the councilors determines that failure to comply with the provisions will lead to the application of sanctions that, depending on the recurrence, could be defined between fines equivalent to between 200 and 400 liters of super gasoline, temporary suspension of the platform or permanent disqualification of the same. Another consideration that the taxi drivers union highlights in the letter is that it should be the municipal Executive Department that creates the application and that must make the budget adjustments for its maintenance. The councilors insisted that this is a proposal that must be analyzed by the deliberative body and that, in the event that it is received and subsequently discussed in the venue, it will undergo some modifications that will enter into debate in the Transportation commission.
Among their fundamentals, the taxi drivers highlighted that the drivers work “between 16 and 18 hours a day, mostly without weekly rest, so that – in the best of cases – they reach an income of about $200,000, practically 25% of the basic food basket.” And they asked “almost desperately,” as the writing says, that the Deliberative Council analyze their proposal. “In San Miguel de Tucumán there are more than 7,000 families whose income depends directly on regulated activities – taxis – which are deteriorated daily by the incursion of these transports that travel illegally, generating unfair competition,” they defended.
The drivers accused that Uber workers “evade taxes, do not respect regulations and promote an unfair practice and commercial inequality” and that “they do not observe the safety of the user, drivers and owners of the units because they lack insurance.”
