By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) president has summoned all its affiliates to a Monday, August 18 meeting to discuss possible industrial action to support "oppressed and disrespected" taxi drivers.

Obie Ferguson, in an August 13, 2025, letter to all TUC member unions, urged that no less than ten persons from each affiliate attend as he unveiled his "you for me, I for you" rallying cry calling on them to back "our bothers and sisters of the Taxi Cab Union".

Noting that the Taxi Cab Union has just become a TUC member, he added: "This is extremely significant because the Taxi Cab Union has been in the forefront of the struggle for Bahamian workers for over over six decades. It was the Taxi Cab Union that led the General Strike in 1958.

"As a result of the said strike, the workers in The Bahamas took their rightful place around the national table and helped to usher in Majority Rule in 1967."

However, Mr Ferguson then wrote: Once again, the members of this historic union are being oppressed and disrespected by some of those who have benefited from their struggles more than 60 years ago. They are fighting for the same benefits and equal rights that they fought for decades ago. Enough is enough."

The TUC chief did not explain who was responsible for taxi drivers being "oppressed and disrespected", and he did not respond to calls or messages before press time last night. However, the meeting and call-out are likely to have been sparked by taxi drivers' long-running grievances with livery drivers, government agencies and officials, and private sector operators such as the hotel industry.

The Taxi Cab Union has long accused officials of allowing livery drivers to compete for business by soliciting customers in areas purportedly reserved for taxi drivers. Complaints have been made about this practice occurring at the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA), the Nassau Cruise Port and resort properties such as Atlantis.

Other concerns relate to the presence of illegal operators, known as "hackers", and the Government's failure to crack down on them, plus an over-saturation of the transportation market - with too many drivers chasing too little business - due to the issuance of more than 800 new taxi plates and 300–400 livery plates.

Tyrone Butler, the Taxi Cab Union's president, in a late July 2005 interview with Tribune Business, noted the long-standing issues taxi drivers have faced regarding livery drivers allegedly “operating illegally”. He also called out hotel properties for allowing livery drivers to “steal” jobs from taxi drivers. Mr Butler said he and his members’ patience has grown thin, and they are working with Mr Ferguson to “see some movement on those issues”.

“We’re not going to sit around and wait for the minister or any other agencies to string us along with promises. We’ve been given a lot of empty promises up to this point, and we’ve seen the results. Our patience basically run out with this government and its response to a lot of the things that we’ve been asking them to address. And so we’re at that point now where we expect to turn up the heat in short order,” Mr Butler asserted.

“It’s not just the Government that we have issues with. We have issues with singular properties, hotel properties also, and the airport, and so all of these areas that are challenging to us we’re going to seek to do what we need to do to have them addressed one way or the other. I mean, we’re not going to sit around and allow persons to just want to have meeting and talk and talk and no results.”

Mr Butler reiterated that livery drivers operating in a space reserved for taxi drivers is against the law. “One of the things the Government and all of these property operators have to understand is taxi drivers are part of the landscape of the visitor vacation experience,” he said.

“Transportation to and from certain destinations that is designated for taxis should be done by taxis, not by unscrupulous drivers who were given permission by authorities to operate contrary to what the law says. And so that’s the biggest problem.”