WE RAISED an alarm last November, when JUTC buses were used to block several streets in downtown Kingston in a protest sparked by a confrontation between the police and bus workers. We saw that incident as an ominous new tactic in illegal road-blocking.
The National Association of Taxi Operators (NATO), which claims national membership in the thousands, last weekend, threatened to use the same tactic in pursuit of an ultimatum to the Government. The brazen threat involved a demand that action be taken against illegal taxi operators or else the taxis would be parked en masse on Hope Road, a major artery of Kingston and St. Andrew traffic.
The obvious intent was to create public confusion and potential mayhem, regardless of the consequences. Traffic movement in the city is already beset by the overwhelming numbers of vehicles slowed to a crawl on many of the major roadways. Imagine, therefore, the impact of crippling the flow on Hope Road and the spin-off it would generate on other streets.
As we have pointed out before, blocking the roads with debris is an illegal form of popular protest which is fraught with many dangers. Using taxicabs for the same purpose would be a bigger dimension of the same illegal activity, with even more potential dangers to other vehicles and to pedestrians.
We have also made the point that there is provision under the Trade Union Act for peaceful picketing by workers involved in a trade dispute. In our view, demanding that Government take action against illegal competitors in the taxi business is not a trade dispute as defined by the law, and blocking a roadway with a vehicle is not 'peaceful picketing' in any circumstance.
And to combine the demand with a brazen ultimatum reeks of impertinent blackmail by an upstart organisation without any sense of basic protocol.
The Ministry of Transport and Works has quite rightly rejected the ultimatum, and the NATO leaders, in a late development, have apologised, as indeed they should.
They do have a right to complain that while their members pay the required fees to operate public passenger vehicles, illegal taxis are allowed to operate without paying anything. But waving a big stick to make this point is not the way to go.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
