Over 200 taxi drivers gathered outside Veezu's Sheffield offices today as they protested the "staggering" cuts the company is taking out of their fares.
Drivers spoke to reporters from The Star, BBC and ITV about why they're taking this action.
Drivers spoke to reporters from The Star, BBC and ITV about why they're taking this action.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 We're here to demonstrate against WIZU because of the rising cost of commission.
00:04 Our fares have come down, price of fuel has gone up, insurances have gone up this year by 25-30%
00:12 but all we've paid to them is too high and we're not saving very much because I've been doing this job for 20 years.
00:19 I was better off 20 years ago than I am now.
00:21 The drivers are what make WIZU. If the drivers weren't here WIZU wouldn't be making our money.
00:26 It's us that go out on the road, do our work, for them to make money.
00:32 We just want it to be fair fare. It's fair for everyone.
00:37 Obviously they're a business, they want to make money, we want to make money.
00:39 But we don't want to lose out, we don't want to be running around for WIZU whilst they're sat in their offices and stuff like that.
00:45 Scraping together hours, not spending time with our families out on the road trying to make a living for ourselves,
00:51 making a decent life for our families. It's not fair. That's why we're here, that's why we're protesting.
00:55 So what they've done is basically what they're saying is that if you do less jobs you'll be paying more on your AGRA,
01:01 which is your fare structure, and if you do more jobs you'll be paying less percentage.
01:05 Less jobs, more percentage. More jobs, less.
01:09 But the trouble is they haven't got no jobs. There's no jobs to do.
01:13 They've got so many drivers that will be out on the streets for you and hours to do our 10 jobs.
01:18 They've got drivers from out of town, you've got Wolverhampton drivers, you've got Bastrop, Calderdale drivers that come and work with Sheffield.
01:24 We're licensed in Sheffield, we're a licensed fee to Sheffield, we pay insurance, that's why we're working in Sheffield, which is a high insurance.
01:31 You've got Wolverhampton drivers, you know, with older cars, we have to buy cars that are CAZ compliant and stuff like that.
01:37 So that's another thing. I've spent money on the cabs recently. I didn't have to, didn't want to, but I had to.
01:43 You know what I mean? So that's part of it, but they're not taking it on the right to conduct this integration.
01:47 There's out of town drivers from Wolverhampton, all different places.
01:49 You've got drivers from Bradford, Leeds, all that coming into our city.
01:56 You've got to do at least, I'd say, about 85 to 100 jobs to see some difference.
02:02 And that's a lot of jobs. You've got to do at least 9, 10 hours.
02:06 And then go home.
02:07 So that's 70 hours a week.
02:09 So, unlike us, we've got flexibility. We've got a school in Cornwall, we've got a car break stand, we've got a bus somewhere.
02:16 Social life.
02:17 We've got our own lives, so the flexibility, that's what we've done.
02:20 So it's gone really hard. So we're only here just to negotiate and just do as a fair structure.
02:26 For example, if we go to Manchester Airport, that job would take us out of here.
02:34 We could only do maybe one trip, two trips in the day.
02:38 That takes a long time.
02:40 Now, Visa's structure is that they've got a number of jobs.
02:44 So how many of the jobs we do, they will take commission from a sliding scale.
02:51 If you do, say, 12, 13 jobs, this starts at 35%.
02:56 Now, that's a staggering amount.
02:58 Now, if I do a Manchester Airport, 85 pounds, Visa used to take 17 pounds of that.
03:05 At 35%, that goes to 29.75.
03:09 So it's a big jump, a big part of it.
03:13 If you take all the costs away, the fuel costs, the insurance, the time spent,
03:18 the driver's left with about 30 pounds for four hours' work.
03:22 That's hardly the minimum wage.