Taxi drivers plan 'day of action' on Friday

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The union representing Ottawa’s taxi industry is planning a mass “day of action” on Friday that it hopes will clog streets around the St. Elias Banquet Centre in Mooney’s Bay and refocus attention on the 200 or so Airport-branded taxi drivers’ three-month labour dispute.

The drivers, members of Unifor Local 1688, have been locked out of the airport since early August. They have been picketing at the airport, slowing traffic along the Airport Parkway and mounting protests in hopes of overturning a contract between the Ottawa Airport Authority and dispatcher Coventry Connections that ended the drivers’ exclusive right to pick up fares at the airport and increased the fees the drivers must pay to do so.

The union has sent out press releases saying its members have been treated unfairly and demanding the labour dispute be ended immediately. The union is encouraging neighbouring Unifor locals to join Friday’s rally and has taken out a full-page ad in newspapers promoting Friday’s event and encouraging support for the locked-out taxi drivers.

With 305,000 members, Unifor is the country’s largest private-sector union, representing workers in the transportation, forestry, energy, manufacturing, education and health care and dozens of other sectors.

Ottawa police had not been notified late Tuesday of any plans for the protest, including which roads would be affected, how many people would attend and how long the protest would last. In a Nov. 5 letter to its members, the union said it would gather at the St. Elias Centre, then “depart as a group, in motorcade form.”

Harry Ghadban, national representative for Unifor, said details would be shared “soon.”

“We don’t have answers to your questions yet. We are still planning it all,” Ghadban said. “We’re going to meet at the St. Elias Centre at 10 and we will meet in a planning committee before then to determine where we’re going to go and at what time. We’re not sure yet (about numbers), but we’re hoping for a good number.”

It would be the second such event the union has held in the past month. A similar protest on Oct. 19, the day of the federal election, went largely unnoticed.

The union’s push for attention and sympathy from the public comes at the same time it’s dealing with inner conflict. Although all Ottawa cabbies are represented by Unifor, the airport drivers are in a different local. While the airport drivers are locked out, other Unifor members have ignored the pickets and picked up airport fares.

“We are grappling with how we deal with that,” said Ghadban. “The company created a turf war by pitting one driver against another. People need an opportunity that makes them money. It’s certainly a difficult situation that we are in.”