Taxi Driver Online

There was a meeting held last week by disgruntled asian glasgow private hire drivers on staging a mass walkout. The points raised at the meeting were several. They want to get rid of a call sign allocation policy which they claim unfairly discriminates against them. There are in the region of at least 150 plus asain /ethnic minority drivers with glasgow private hire, some who also come from the east end parts of the city. They claim that practically every asain driver who does live in the east, is given a southside call sign due to thier background. But if you are non ethnic, you dont need to ask twice and it is taken for granted that you are given an east callsign. The big issue with the callsign is that the southside of the city is very quiet for this firm unlike the east which is buzzing most of the time. the points also raised was if the firm will not advertise , something which every driver is paying for via there wiegh in, then there radio dues should be halved, to take into consideration, the low levels of business that they get in the south of the city.
My personal views on this is gph has it coming for a long time. for a firm as big and prominent as this, fair play should be essential feature of the company.
The current wiegh in is 101 pounds, but they claim that thier east colleuges earn twice what they do yet they pay the same costs for thier radios.
Also mentioned was the on going abuse that these asain drivers recieve by the controllers on duty. It is not difficult for a controller to know who they are as the`k` sign is assigned to these drivers and as a result any controller who has a bone to pick for some reason or another has a field day slinging jobs and being plain rude and foulmouthed.The whole system in use at glasgow private hire is down right prejudice inso far as callsigns go. it is a common beleif amongst all at the firm that asain drivers will always be on a south side callsign regrdless.
There were in the region of 70 odd drivers attended and taking into consideration even this small amount, the total weekly take for gph amounts to over 7000 pounds. Enough to make a dent in anyones pocket.
The last i heard of it was a formal letter of complaint going out to the managing director steven malcolm to request a meting to try and resolve the issues at hand.

This issue has been raised before, and I have a lot of sympathy with you and your mates.

What I would do is to write to the press with your concerns. It's a much better having a lot of the lads backing you up. It might also be worth having another meeting, and inviting both the management of the firm, and the lads from the CRE.

Now that would be very interesting.

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IDFIMH