On two occasions in September-October 2003, taxi drivers from around Poland converged on Warsaw, blocking traffic for many hours. The taxi drivers were protesting against an order by the Minister of Finance that, from 1 January 2004, taxis must be fitted with tax-certified cash registers at the expense of their owners.
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On two occasions in September-October 2003, taxi drivers from around Poland converged on Warsaw, blocking traffic for many hours. The taxi drivers were protesting against an order by the Minister of Finance that, from 1 January 2004, taxis must be fitted with tax-certified cash registers at the expense of their owners.
The Ministry of Finance (Ministerstwo Finansów, MF) has ordered that tax-approved cash registers must be installed in all taxis from 1 January 2004 at the expense of their owners, with the aim of tracking accurately the revenue of drivers and the VAT due thereon. The Ministry maintains that these devices are made necessary by relevant European Union laws. The registers are comparatively expensive, costing around EUR 600 each. The announcement that this requirement will be imposed has triggered mass discontent among taxi drivers, who have staged some form of blockade in central Warsaw every month since the early summer of 2003. One of the larger ones was held on 30 September, when 10,000 taxis from all over Poland formed a motorcade several kilometres long which disrupted traffic across most of the city. This was in contravention of the law, as the taxi drivers had been granted a 'permit to demonstrate' which was conditional on them refraining from blocking traffic. In an interview with the Życie Warszawy daily newspaper, a spokesperson for the Nationwide Protest Committee of Taxi and Transport Drivers (Ogólnopolskiego Komitetu Protestacyjnego Taksówkarzy i Transportowców), when asked what the taxi drivers would do if the Ministry of Finance does not relent, stated: 'There will be a catastrophe. We will block you [ie Warsaw] thoroughly and for a long time. (...) We are 150,000 strong. Now, 10,000 of us came; in two weeks, we can be back as 100,000.'
Polish law is quite lenient with respect to the organisation of strikes and protests; the Warsaw municipal authorities may not refuse to permit a demonstration to be held as long as its organisers undertake that it will not pose a hazard to life and limb or to property. The taxi drivers duly secured permission for their next demonstration, held on 28 October. This time, however, the large numbers of taxis expected to descend upon the city actually numbered a relatively modest 2,000. The drivers drove around the streets of Warsaw from early morning, posing a general nuisance but failing to block the city centre. On the same day, the mass media reported that tax-approved cash registers are not mandatory for taxis in the EU, as claimed by the Ministry of Finance. This angered the taxi drivers considerably. However, a spokesperson for the Ministry declared in Życie Warszawy that 'fiscal cash registers are indispensable for recording turnover and we will not give up on their introduction. By the same token, we will not discuss this issue with the taxi drivers as there is nothing to be discussed, and nobody to talk with.' The following day, the protest was discontinued, with the taxi drivers promising to renew their blockades of Warsaw in the future.
The taxi drivers’ protests were received coolly by the public at large, to the extent that some people convened a committee for 'a taxi passengers’ strike'. The wider ramifications of the taxi drivers’ protests and their public reception are that they may be indicative of a lack of public support for a possible strike by transportation workers. The Independent and Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarity (Niezależny, Samorządny Zwiazek Zawodowy Solidarność, NSZZ Solidarność) has been threatening a general strike by railway workers in November 2003 (PL0311102N), but the question now arises whether such an initiative would not share the fate of the taxi protests.
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2003), Taxi drivers organise protests, article.
