Some taxi drivers cut off from dispatch in fee dispute

CTV Ottawa: Some cabbies to refuse to pay fees Some Ottawa taxi drivers say they will refuse to pay dispatch fees to Coventry Connections, saying their business has dropped dramatically.

Dozens of taxis have been cut off from dispatch over a fee dispute with their parent company, Coventry Connections.

CTV Ottawa has learned about 60 drivers employed by Coventry Connections have stopped paying their roughly $500.00 a month dispatch fee in protest over rising costs and declining fares. A union representative says those drivers are in violation of their collective agreement and have been cut off from dispatch because they haven’t paid the fees. The drivers in this case, the representative says, all lease taxi plates from other drivers and owners.

The drivers tell CTV Ottawa they can no longer afford to pay the fee given Uber’s rising dominance in the field. According to numbers released at a city of Ottawa meeting last month, Uber has completed 1.4 million trips in the first three months since getting a PTC license.

Hanif Patni, the President of Coventry Connections, admits trips are down since Uber moved into the market but says his company is doing everything it can to help drivers get more work. He says it is a normal process and part of the collective agreement to temporarily suspended drivers from the dispatch system if they have not paid the fees. He says the impacted drivers will get their full privileges back when they come into the station and pay the fee.

This isn’t the first time drivers and Coventry Connections have gone head-to-head.  In 2015, tensions were high after Coventry Connections removed exclusivity at the Ottawa International Airport for about 150 airport taxis and added a $5 dollar pick-up fee to fares.

The protest outside the Ottawa International Airport lasted several weeks.

A protest is apparently planned for Friday.