The confrontation between groups of cab drivers in Ibiza over the GPS service fee is about to add a new chapter. In November, the Ibiza Taxi Island Federation (FITIE) had increased the monthly fee for the service from 105 to 150 euros, which sparked questions from the Balearic Islands Taxi Association. Now, the FITIE not only ratifies the previous increases, but also advances that its new budgets will allow reducing the rate; while the minority grouping is confident that the City Council will have to demand a breakdown of the price that would also pull it down.
The increase that generated the controversy
“The amount of the service fee offered by the federation is not a whim or whim, but is conditioned by an economic report, from which derives a budget that includes all items of the service,” argues Antonio Roig Torres, president of the FITIE, to La Voz de Ibiza, in relation to the November increase .
“The main factor was that we were assuming a budget that was very obsolete. It was necessary in order to continue operating, because the federation had been working at a loss for several months due to retroactive labor issues from previous years that had not been contemplated in the budget, and which we found when we took over the Federation in the middle of the year,” Roig adds.
In addition, the FITIE president adds that they made “an increase in the number of people who control the stops, due to the demand they have”, and that the implementation of an extra service in the airport hall also “was reflected in the numbers”.
The Agrupación de Autotaxis de las Islas Baleares criticizes the fact that the Federation’s own operating expenses, including those mentioned above, are transferred to the fees paid by all cab drivers.
“What we expect is that they separate the GPS fee from their federation’s. If they consider that they have more expenses, I, who am not in FITIE, have no reason to pay their federation’s expenses. If they consider that they have more expenses, I, who am not in the FITIE, have no reason to pay expenses of their federation”, argues logically Joan Marí Riera, of the group.
Roig, on the other hand, emphasizes as a positive thing that the rate is the same for everyone. “We do not have a variety of prices according to association, but we try to unify the collective”. “The City Council gave us their return and said that they did not see any inconvenience in the increases presented,” he adds.
Criticism of the Ibiza Town Hall
Marí Riera criticized in his letter that the City Council “simply acknowledges receipt and accept, without further ado, the rates of the Federation”.
When asked by La Voz de Ibiza, the City Council avoided referring to the conflict over the GPS fee.
“The rate should be perfectly broken down and differentiated from any other fee paid for other concepts, which should only and exclusively affect FITIE members,” Marí Riera recently insisted in a statement released to the media. As he recalled, this distinction had already been claimed in a report of Legal Services of the City Council in 2016.
“In the absence of a clear breakdown of the different rates presented to the consistory, it is impossible for professionals not integrated in the FITIE to deduce whether what they are billed is strictly adjusted to the GPS service, or also includes other expenses inherent only to the Federation,” he insisted.
Precisely for this reason, it has filed a complaint with the City Council, as a result of which the consistory resolved to disallow “the disconnection of the GPS service of the associates who have not paid the fee increase until the situation is clarified”. The City Council also urged the FITIE to detail its calculations in an assembly.
The last assembly did not bring positions closer
Precisely, Roig has clarified that “in the last assembly of the federation -held on December 23- has been invited, in a section of the meeting to license holders who do not belong to the federation. And we regret the low attendance”.
However, Marí Riera, who was invited but did not attend, considers that the invitation was meaningless. “They misunderstand freedom of association,” he complains. “They held an assembly to agree on fares, and those of us who were not FITIE members were invited for the questions part, when they had already unanimously approved the 150 euro fare. The cab drivers who were not members of FITIE were told that they had calculated what the rate would be without additional expenses of the federation, but they did not want to communicate it. I suppose that the City Council has demanded it,” he claims. “They cook it, they eat it,” he questions.
What can happen
Meanwhile, from the Agrupación de Autotaxis de Baleares await news for next week: they understand that, as a result of their requests, Legal Services of the City Council will issue a new report, in which, they discount, the argument of the aforementioned report of 2016 will be reinforced: that the components of the GPS fee should be separated from the expenses of the operation of the federation.
“We expect it to say that the operator must separate the fees. FITIE has not told us how much is the rate only with GPS expenses. We were told that it would be communicated by the city council, and that is what we expect to be communicated this coming week,” Marí elaborated.
FITIE promises a reduction
Although he does not validate Marí Riera’s arguments, Roig tells La Voz de Ibiza that “since 31/12 a new proposal is on the table of the City Council”. By the way, he says that, if authorized, the fee will be “lower”.
Although he did not specify an amount, he speculates that “maybe it will go down 10 or 15%” from its current value.
