AS LOCKDOWN EASES, CARDIFF TAXI DRIVERS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT RETURNING TO WORK, SAYS THE SECRETARY OF THE UNITE WALES TAXI BRANCH
CARDIFF IS ONE OF THREE LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN THE UK WHERE SAFETY SCREENS HAVE BEEN APPROVED BUT ARE YET TO BE INSTALLED
THIS DELAY IS BECAUSE THE POLICY LAID DOWN BY AUTHORITIES IS UNNECESSARILY COMPLEX, MAKING IT NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE DRIVER TO ACHIEVE
WITH A HIGH NUMBER OF DRIVERS FROM A BLACK, ASIAN OR ETHNIC MINORITY BACKGROUND IN CARDIFF, THERE ARE FEARS THAT THEY HAVE BEEN LEFT PARTICULARLY EXPOSED.
By F Clarke
As Wales begins to ease out of lockdown, society has been preparing for what has continually been described as “the new normal.”
In Cardiff city centre, the main street Castle street has been pedestrianised so that people can eat and drink outdoors, with some pubs and restaurants allowing people to sit indoors for the first time since late March.
People and workers are starting to ease back into their old routines, and businesses are picking up the pieces after weeks of being closed or restricted in the services they could offer.
But not everyone is treated equally in this new reality, and there is one essential trade in particular where workers feel forgotten by politicians, and, as a result, left dangerously exposed to the virus.
This trade is the taxi trade.
As Yusef Jama puts it, “[we feel like] the poor cousins of the transport sector in Wales.”
As secretary of the taxi branch at Unite, Yusef has been on the frontlines of fighting for better safety protection for drivers during the pandemic, but he’s been met with much resistance when it comes to one particular safety measure – screens – which he stresses would protect not only drivers, but the public too.
Taxi drivers, along with security guards, are more likely to die with Covid-19 than any other occupation, according to a recent study by the ONS.
“One driver was [so] severely ill,” says Yusef, pictured above. “Thankfully he’s out of hospital now…[but] we were concerned for his well being, knowing he had caught the virus. We were told it damaged the internal body, you know, the lungs and other organs, and things like that. He’s had, I think it’s two to three operations.”
Safety screens are one way of offering a certain level of protection to workers, but months into the pandemic and they’ve still not been fitted.
“Don’t get me wrong, screens were never there to be put in taxis,” Yusef tells me. “But this is now a norm where we’re making decisions we wouldn’t normally make…basically to protect and preserve life from this nasty virus which [has] taken a lot of lives.”
It’s essential to take into account that Yusef says somewhere in the region of 80% of Cardiff’s drivers are Black, Asian or from an ethnic minority background, and Covid-19 has been shown to disproportionately affect people from these groups. The failure to protect drivers has huge ramifications.
323 local authorities in the UK – including Leicester, Manchester, and Liverpool – have approved temporary safety screens for taxis. Cardiff is also included in this list, but has issued a fitting criteria so unachievable they’re yet to actually be installed.
Meanwhile, drivers desperate to earn a living are left exposed to Covid-19 and the growing threat of a second spike.
“I’ve had people ringing my phone, concerned, asking me, ‘what’s the situation? Are we allowed to have screens?’ Now I’ve told them we’re allowed screens, but the bar’s raised too high – the barrier’s in the policy.”
Yusef says the body responsible for the impasse is called Shared Regulatory Services (SRS), which operates on behalf of Cardiff, Vale of Glamorgan and Bridgend councils. SRS are contracted by Cardiff Council to oversee the implementation of safety screens and have the power to refuse their installation.
If a driver goes against the Council and SRS’s decision and installs a screen themselves – even one manufactured and put in professionally – they will have their licence taken away and will be unable to work.
One Cardiff cabbie who had an underlying health condition and fitted his own screen professionally was barred from driving for months, and thrown into poverty as a result.
All of this could have been avoided, Yusef argues, if the political will was there. While the response seemed optimistic at first and SRS green-lighted the use of safety screens, they quickly came back with a criteria that he describes as “extreme and unachievable.”
When I approached SRS about this, they said I should speak to Cardiff Council. A spokesperson for the council told me in a statement that they were “working with the taxi and private hire trade to ensure that screens are safe and do not compromise the complex safetysystems found in modern vehicles. A number of installations have been brought to our attention and the licensing department is working with these companies to help ensure driver and passenger safety.”
They also said that they have received guidelines from the Welsh Government outlining “the standards and regulations that should be followed.”
Yusef feels that some concerns around safety – specifically air bags being unable to inflate – are a small risk in comparison to the everyday threat currently posed by Covid-19.
“Knowing the times we’re in, this is the time where you have to think outside the box,” he says. “You got to make decisions which you wouldn’t have to make due to this happening. It’s happening everywhere else [screens fitted in Cardiff], why isn’t it happening in Cardiff?”
“We had to bury a driver”
In Cardiff and Newport alone, Yusef claims that six drivers have died after contracting Covid-19.
“Do the government really realise, do our local authority realise, the impact it’s having on us?” he asks desperately.
“We had to bury [a driver]. We did a collection. We also did a drive-by past their house on the day of his funeral. It was an emotional day for every taxi driver in Cardiff, but it was a sign of unity between us all, and the concerns we have. We want action. We want stuff in place now.”
For Yusef, the way out of this mess is to reassess the policy: “We [drivers] are only asking for a policy that gives the necessary protection to all drivers and their families and our customers, without barriers in implementing the screens.”
While there is no specific law prohibiting drivers from installing screens in their taxis, there are wider powers for the licensing authorities to refuse or issue a Stop Notice to a driver if he installs a safety screen without permission from the SRS.
“What’s shocked me the most is everybody’s looking at social distancing,” says Yusef. “The most vulnerable places to catch this virus is a taxi.”
Face masks are currently mandatory on all forms of public transport – including taxis – in Wales. However, with masks so far proving controversial, and some people refusing to wear them, Yusef rightly asks: “Are we [drivers] supposed to police ourselves?”
“We can’t force them to wear it if they don’t want to wear it…And calling the police is pointless. They won’t even come out for somebody who’s refused to pay or is disputing the fare or refusing to leave your taxi- you’ve got to wait till the next day,” he adds.
Taxi drivers are being put in this difficult position daily, where they’re choosing between shouldering the risk of driving somebody who isn’t wearing a mask or losing the fare completely.
“The confrontation of saying to somebody ‘oh sorry mate, you can’t get in my taxi, you have to get out of my taxi, you don’t have a mask.’ He says, ‘I’m not leaving’, it’s either confrontation, where the driver could be assaulted, or the driver takes him.”
“The BAME community is left to fend for themselves”
Not only does the virus discriminate in terms of occupation, it has also been verified by ONS data that people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) communities in England and Wales are more prone to dying from Covid-19 than their white counterparts.
Black males are 4.2 times more likely to die from a Covid-19 related death, while Black females are 4.3 times more likely than white males or females. The study also underlines the high risk of death for people of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian and mixed ethnicities.
“Don’t forget you’ve got even the healthy people in the BAME community [dying],” Yusef adds. “They say this virus is not discriminating, but to me it is. Most of our fleet of drivers are old men – they need protection.”
The knowledge of this data is hugely relevant to the taxi trade, with 40.2% of drivers in Wales alone identifying as being from a Black, Asian or ethnic minority background, but only 5.9% of the total Welsh population describing themselves as Asian, Black, ‘Mixed/Multiple ethnic group’ or ‘Other ethnic group’ – indicating their disproportionate representation in the taxi trade.
“I know they’ve [Welsh Government] done a report, an investigation…why it’s affected BAME communities so much more. But I haven’t seen nothing come from this report, I haven’t seen no action done from this report,” stresses Yusef. “I haven’t seen where they’ve put more protection and assistance to the BAME community at this moment. For me, I still believe that the BAME community is left to fend for themselves.”
He says that despite referencing the taxi trade, no one who authored the report has spoken directly to drivers.
In many ways, the pandemic has simply further exposed pre-existing inequalities. Almost 11% of the people living in the most deprived 10% of small areas in Wales identify as being from a Black, Asian or ethnic minority background, more than double the proportion in the total population. Moreover, people from a Black, Asian or ethnic minority background are more likely to live in overcrowded housing too, including 27% of Bangladeshis, compared with 4.9% of the white British population. This undoubtedly puts them at higher risk of contracting the virus before they even leave their front door.
“We feel neglected”
With Castle Street – previously a busy area for taxis – now off-limits for drivers in Cardiff, and with less people taking taxis generally, drivers are struggling to make ends meet.
“There’s nobody actually getting in taxis. Taxi drivers are working four to five hours to get a £10 fare – if they’re lucky,” Yusef explains.
While Wales received an additional £64.5m in transport funding from the UK government to cope with the impacts of the pandemic, taxi drivers have been left at an awkward crossroads where they are classed as self-employed individuals, yet also considered as a mode of public transport. As a result, they’ve had no such financial assistance despite incurring continuing costs like car payments and insurance.
Yusef tells me that the concession on fees granted to drivers for badges and vehicle licences fees at the beginning of lockdown – which helped drivers a little towards their bills – have now been stopped, with his request for a two-month extension rejected.
“To take that away is a massive financial kick in the teeth for the drivers. So now they got to go and pay their licence fees,” he says.
“Ten pounds is valuable to them today. And for them to be paying them fees from the 1st August, was… it was more of a lack of compassion [towards] the plight of the drivers.”
Yusef also adds that conflicting messaging from the government – Welsh and UK – has put people off riding in taxis, so trade is low despite restaurants and pubs beginning to open up again.
“You’ve got a guideline from Welsh Government, Parliament, saying at the moment do not use public transport – that’s not helping us.”
The pedestrianisation of Castle Street has many benefits, from reducing pollution in what was an extremely busy area, to making the city more cyclist-friendly, but for Yusef and other drivers in Cardiff, it’s frustrating too, as it represents what has been prioritised and what – or who – hasn’t.
“There’s so much money being pumped into certain things in the city, [but] taxi drivers need help, financial help when it comes to PPE, when it comes to safety screens, they can’t afford to pay their bills, their mortgage. So, they’re already in a financial struggle.”
Yusef describes the state of the taxi industry right now as “the forgotten trade” – as he increasingly feels like he is being met with silence.
“It’s totally unacceptable. It’s totally..what we call…I think there’s one word for it…neglect,” Yusef says hesitantly. “It’s quite a powerful word to use, but we feel neglected.”
“There’s a genuine fear from the drivers in those communities since lives remain at stake,” Yusef adds
“[There’s] one thing I gotta make clear. Taxi drivers are scared to go back to work – especially old men. They’re really concerned that they will catch the virus……particularly given the fact that so many questions remain unanswered regarding the health and safety of the BAME drivers.”
When asked what he wants now, Yusef replies: “They – the government, council – but primarily Shared Regulatory Services, need to answer. They have made mistakes, huge mistakes, when it comes to the taxi trade.”
He says there now has to be an inquiry into the way in which drivers have been treated throughout the pandemic.
“They need to have the courage to come back and say ‘we’ve made a mistake, we forgot the taxi trade, let’s go back and see what we can do to make up for what we’ve missed.’ The question is, how many [more] lives is it going to take for them to realise they’ve made a mistake?”
