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The predicament of Uber to enter the juicy tourist business of the Mexican Caribbean

2023-01-28T21:58:08.365Z


The conflict between the taxi sector, strongly unionized, and the digital platform has resulted in roadblocks and street attacks that have transferred the matter to the Prosecutor's Office and the state government


Between palm trees and crystalline waters, Cancun taxi drivers are waging an ugly fight against the company Uber, which also wants to enjoy the million-dollar Caribbean business.

What in other countries of the world would be a purely labor issue, in Mexico the logic is traversed by obscure factors that have resulted in roadblocks and street attacks that have transferred the matter to the Prosecutor's Office and forced the state government of Quintana Roo to intervene so that the waters do not overflow in one of the most touristic places in the world.

The image and income goes into it.

Tempers agitated and positions very conflicting, everyone agrees on something: this has become a social problem that jeopardizes the future of the Riviera Maya and disturbs the population on a daily basis.

The Destination, they call this area of ​​the Riviera Maya where last year the success of tourists was exceeded, with 30 million visits, 12 of them to Cancun.

Uber has been wanting to be part of the taxi driver network since 2016, but it has always met with fierce resistance from the workers behind the wheel, until now, when the multinational has won a legal protection that allows its drivers to work privately in this hotel city. without going through the trade union or having the obligatory public concession to provide the service.

The green gang vehicles blocked the road that goes from the airport to the tourist area, causing chaotic traffic in the city, and there were attacks on Uber drivers and their users, who were violently removed from the cars.

The president of the Government,

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was quick to say that there was more media noise than nuts, but no one was oblivious to the risk that the goose that laid the golden eggs would get hurt.

The Government of Quintana Roo immediately sent the governor's deputy, lawyer Cristina Torres, who has already met with both parties separately and hopes to meet them on Monday to make them see that there is no choice but to allow Uber to enter the the area, but also that some regulations are necessary in the sector, something that the judicial protection recognizes, where the legislator is granted "a wide margin of configuration to choose the ways in which the people involved in the provision of the service must operate ”.

but no one was oblivious to the risk of the goose that laid the golden eggs getting hurt.

The Government of Quintana Roo immediately sent the governor's deputy, lawyer Cristina Torres, who has already met with both parties separately and hopes to meet them on Monday to make them see that there is no choice but to allow Uber to enter the the area, but also that some regulations are necessary in the sector, something that the judicial protection recognizes, where the legislator is granted "a wide margin of configuration to choose the ways in which the people involved in the provision of the service must operate ”.

but no one was oblivious to the risk of the goose that laid the golden eggs getting hurt.

The Government of Quintana Roo immediately sent the governor's deputy, lawyer Cristina Torres, who has already met with both parties separately and hopes to meet them on Monday to make them see that there is no choice but to allow Uber to enter the the area, but also that some regulations are necessary in the sector, something that the judicial protection recognizes, where the legislator is granted "a wide margin of configuration to choose the ways in which the people involved in the provision of the service must operate ”.


A vehicle enters the union in Cancun, to which taxi drivers must join Emilio Espejel

"There is a market for everyone," reconciles Cristina Torres, secretary of the state government, in an austere office in Cancun from where she conducts the negotiations.

Everyone already knows that Uber's entry into the business is irrevocable.

"If we do not regulate it, another protection will come," acknowledges the secretary.

Now it's about seeing how they do it so that everyone is satisfied.

The taxi drivers say that they have to pay the public concession to operate the service, but the judicial resolution makes it clear that they can do it privately.

Therefore, the Government is satisfied with implementing some measures that avoid bad habits.

“We want Uber to agree to us monitoring all of their drivers to see who is on the platform and who is not.

That they understand that they cannot be just a platform provider.

They are also planning a charge to the company and a review of the vehicles.

Uber asks for vehicle insurance to enter work on the platform, but does not monitor compliance," says Torres.

In Mexico, millions of public and private vehicles do not have the regulatory insurance.

The bottom line of the matter is the wide sleeve with which taxi drivers in the Riviera Maya have worked for years, benefiting from a union to which they must necessarily join and pay a fee.

Today they complain that the State, where some 25,000 taxi drivers operate, 8,600 in Cancun, has not taken out new public concessions for years or updated the rates that must be charged for the different routes.

The result is abuse in the arbitrary prices that they impose on tourists and a disregard for the local population that has earned them enmity with the people of Cancun, reflected these days in private videos that have gone viral where they are called "dogs" and "corrupt".

Locals also complain about criminal practices.

Riding in a public taxi is not a matter of raising your hand in the street to stop it.

In practically the whole country,

A handful of local companies operate at the Cancun airport that charge about $35 per person for the ride to the Hotel Zone.

Once in the town, a taxi driver stops, the required route is indicated through the window and the driver says: "That costs you 120 pesos [about 6.50 dollars, similar figure in euros]."

Along the same route, another asks for 100 and another 200 pesos, whatever they like at the time and depending on the accent of the person requesting it.

When the people of Cancun require it, sometimes the taxi doesn't even stop.

Many do not offer a note for the amount received and the taximeter is an unknown device in Mexico.

The president of the state union, Eliazar Sagredo Ordóñez, accuses the government of Quintana Roo of this arbitrariness, "which during the previous six-year term did not update the rates, and everything has gone up a lot, fuel,

the repairs.

Furthermore, no further concessions have been granted.

And in the previous mandate, of those that were granted, one part was for the union and the other for the personal commitments of the politicians”.

This matter is also known to all the locals.

Locals use the collective taxi in the city of Cancun as an alternative to high transportation pricesEmilio Espejel

Taxi drivers are not enemies of the companies that operate at the airport, "the entry of Uber will affect everyone," they say.

And also the hoteliers ask for calm so that tourism is not affected.

"What we are asking for is a level floor, that we all pay taxes, the state concession and other expenses," requests Sagredo Ordóñez.

"The State must regulate, it is its legislative responsibility, the multinationals are taking the money to tax havens, nothing for the State," adds the union leader, who is already meeting with local deputies to negotiate the new Mobility Law called to organize the sector.

Other platforms, such as Cabify and Didi, have begun to operate under the conditions dictated by the union, but they have half a forbidden territory.

No going into hotels to pick up customers.

When a trip is requested through the platform, several taxi drivers take it and cancel it.

Finally, one of them accepts, but picks up the user a street beyond the hotel, so as not to run into conflict with the syndicated taxis, which are everywhere.

And they don't leave the client at the exact destination either, but a few meters away.

Nobody wants to take on the union.

It is not surprising.

When the fight these days with Uber is mentioned to any taxi driver, he answers without fuss: “Don't be fooled, here as everywhere the cartel rules.

It's money.

If they mess with this business they will kill one after another.

Blood will flow."

And they don't leave the client at the exact destination either, but a few meters away.

Nobody wants to take on the union.

It is not surprising.

When the fight these days with Uber is mentioned to any taxi driver, he answers without fuss: “Don't be fooled, here as everywhere the cartel rules.

It's money.

If they mess with this business they will kill one after another.

Blood will flow."

And they don't leave the client at the exact destination either, but a few meters away.

Nobody wants to take on the union.

It is not surprising.

When the fight these days with Uber is mentioned to any taxi driver, he responds without fuss: “Don't be fooled, here as everywhere the cartel rules.

It's money.

If they mess with this business they will kill one after another.

Blood will flow."

Águeda Esperrilla is the one who gives voice to Uber taxi drivers in Cancun these days.

He has been working in the city for six years, when they have allowed him and always with precautions.

He accuses the government and the union of being in collusion to share out the millions left by the "daily quotas of 500 pesos charged to each unionized taxi on a daily basis for working in the Hotel Zone."

Even if it is less, it is still a buoyant business.

He recounts that on Kukulkan Boulevard, where the most nocturnal tourists vent their instincts, the Uber drivers pick up customers in the underground parking lots of the big and noisy locals with crazy parties.

"They say that these clubs belong to drug traffickers and that they don't want the taxi drivers to have confrontations with anyone here so as not to spoil the business,"

affirms Esperrilla at the doors of one of the most emblematic rooms of the city, the Coco Bongo.

The avenue is hellish for the ears, coca moves there and who knows what other illegal businesses.

In short, high voltage for any hole.

Águeda Esperrilla, spokeswoman for Uber drivers in Cancun, leaves a parking lot.Emilio Espejel

That the narco is involved in Cancun is not news to anyone.

Last year there were shooting attacks that killed several people in Tulum, Playa del Carmen and Cancun itself, in the busiest and most touristic areas, in elegant restaurants that exposed the drug market that is moving in the area and the crime that runs through it, from which taxi drivers are not exempt either.

Neither they nor almost anyone who sells anything in these areas.

The monitoring offered by the platforms is a safety factor for taxi users, and the competition, some say, is just fine.

The problem is that "unionized taxi drivers do not know how to use new technologies," says a Didi driver who does not want to give her name.

The leader of the union members in Cancun, Luis Mis, has his own version of him.

He affirms that they also have a platform to request the taxi service, but that “it has not been given enough public campaign”.

Now the Government is considering designing a public, state platform for all members of Quintana Roo and definitively regulating a business that circulates freely.

For this they will have to do a market study.

But first they must immediately establish peace in El Destino, where millions of Americans, Canadians,

Colombians and Spaniards, among the majority.

This week all those involved are called to negotiate.

"I think we will be able to communicate peace on Monday," says Secretary Torres.

The tension is palpable even among the drivers, it is not easy to approach one of the dozens of stops in the tourist area and take some photos.

The taxi drivers do not want to see the journalists who are accused of misinforming about what is happening.

And they do not hesitate to threaten them in very bad ways.

They also take photos with their cell phones and warn them to be "careful."

In Mexico, threats are not jokes.

The president of the union in Cancun condemns the attacks by some taxi drivers, but mentions "the provocations by Uber drivers, who cannot work and take to the streets."

He will, according to the interpretation of the Government, when everything has been regulated.

“We love this city and we don't want to affect tourism,” says Mis calmly.

The Caribbean was always a sea of ​​pirates.

Today things don't seem to have changed much, even though tourists don't find out much about anything inside their luxury resorts.

And in the taxi union the matter is not entirely clear either.

"In tourist destinations, many people pretend to be an operator and we don't have tools to tell if they are or not, so we want to monitor drivers," says Torres.

And ditch.

"There are pirate taxis and pirate Uber."

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-28

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