By the time you read this I will no longer be affiliated to any organisation, association or any type of club within the taxi trade in London. You might say, so what? Well, certain associations, factions, cab related groups, or just plainly the ones with the biggest gobs will have a say in your day to day job and running of your business, whether you have one taxi or hundreds, whether you like it or whether you don’t.

We in London could and should learn from the provinces and suburbs of Britain but like the majority of cab drivers all over the country all we seem to care about is what we take at the end of the week, whilst there are those in the background scheming on how to make as much money from us as they can and claim to represent us at the same time. For many that slice of the cake is getting forever thinner week by week, what with excessive costs and dwindling fares and thus far the redress to the situation seems a long way off. Except, you might say in London, now Mayor Ken Livingstone has imposed a highly increased fare structure (for night drivers only), in an attempt to get more drivers out at night servicing his beloved public and thus potential voters at his next election.

At the beginning I said, I would not be affiliated to any organ isation etc. though I should point out that I have been a member of various associations and until recently on the committee of the second largest in London (London Cab Drivers Club). Belonging to an association is in our best interests but, like the many before me I came to realise that unless an organisation is true to itself and upholds its principles it is acting against its members’ best interests. All members must be treated equally and I cannot support an organisation that fails on this point and breaks its own rules and objectives.

Some time last year about eight London taxi drivers got together and agreed to conduct a petition which was the creation of one of this small group. They had no name but the aim of that group was to inform London’s drivers that they could show beyond any reasonable doubt that the claims by the people purporting to be their representatives (of all London’s 23,000 taxi drivers) was false. They were to campaign against an unelected group, known as the London Taxi Board that had no mandate from the drivers they claimed to represent. The LTB consisted of, taxi manufacturers, garage owners, media men, and of coarse the 3 big chiefs of the big radio circuits, through an organisation known as JARTA. Apart from the T&GWU representative they had no full time working driver on the board and they answered to no one and generally conducted their affairs in secret.

The originator of the petition told this newly formed small group of taxi drivers of his ideas and it was agreed to approach the LCDC to support it. They accepted it and, in their name, (to give it added weight) they put a small amount of money into it and advertised heavily and continuously in their trade publication. It was then taken around the ranks for the drivers to consider and sign. In all honesty I never realised what an impact this petition would have on the cab trade in London.Almost to a man/woman every driver that signed did not want the LTB to represent him or her. Following several months the volunteers managed to collect thousands and thousands of signatures.

To assist in our goal once it was underway, there was much disagreement amongst the various factions that made up the so-called London Taxi Board. The LTDA, the largest driver representative group in London had just previously left and the T&GWU also left leaving no driver representative groups on the board.This one petition achieved more in the few months it was doing the rounds than any meeting that our so-called leaders attended in living memory. It brought home to the drivers how things were being discussed that affected their livelihoods and had no input into it whatsoever.This reaction by signing the petition showed the strength there is in grass roots power and by drivers communicating with one another, their true voice was heard.

That petition as far as I’m concerned belonged to the very drivers who willingly took the time and trouble to put their name to it. When completed it was given to the LCDC in the hope that it would be presented to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. At the LCDC AGM last April the chairman assured the members that it would be handed in, in the very near future. In spite of several requests to committee members since, to-date it has not been presented, dashing the hopes in contempt of, all those who signed it.To their eternal shame it is gathering dust in a filing cabinet somewhere in the LCDC’s office, The truth of why they never presented it may never be known, but I’m sure that many people will feel cheated by them and may never put trust in them in the future.Too many times we have seen peoples’ power trodden on because of someone else’s ego trip that could be at great expense to the taxi trade and in particular, you the driver.

Mark my words, allowing this kind of betrayal will have a knock on effect wherever you ply for hire, whether it is on this particular kind of issue or some other. If we don’t talk to each other whether by phone, the internet or just meeting at a coffee stall, then I’m afraid the powers that be will walk over every one of us.

We need each other in the months and years ahead and no organisation or club will change that if the members get the chance to get their views heard. Legislation is being piled on every cab driver in the land at the moment and if you don’t get talking to each other now and forming groups like the eight I first mentioned, then we are cannon fodder for anyone who wants to step on us in their way to feathering their own nest.

I believe in London (where the mini cabs are being licensed as we speak) that the huge increase in the night tariff, imposed by Ken Livingstone, will do us harm in the long term, especially in the suburbs.

Unfortunately at the end of the day we may have to rely on who’s got the biggest gobs and hopefully, it’ll be cab drivers who really want to see the trade prosper for the future and not those who wear suits and do their level best to get off the cab, forgetting where their grass roots were. If I have learnt one thing it is that there is strength in numbers and even more so when they are united in one voice. And you the cab driver could be that voice.

Bernie May