Italian taxi drivers’ strike raises pressure on Giorgia Meloni government

Taxi drivers across Italy went on strike on Tuesday, in a show of strength against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government, which has come under intense pressure from angry consumers to boost the availability of cabs.

The strike comes weeks after industry minister Adolfo Urso met a delegation of executives from ride-hailing app Uber, angering a powerful taxi driver lobby that has so far managed to restrict the operations of the US-based company, and other similar apps, in Italy.

“This battle is not only in defence of the legitimate interests of taxi drivers,” said Nicola Di Giacobbe, national co-ordinator of Unica, the taxi-drivers arm of CGIL, one of Italy’s three main labour unions. 

He accused the government of “embracing the free market and the privatisation of this sector” and vowed that drivers would resist “a wild deregulation of the market that would replace public service with a service managed by an algorithm”.

But the strike has incensed Italians already infuriated by the chronic shortage that typically leaves travellers arriving at train stations and airports in long, slow-moving queues for an onward ride to complete their journeys.

Several Italian cities are preparing to issue the first additional taxi licences in decades to ease the shortages — but those measures are seen as insufficient.

“It’s a strike against the consumer — unacceptable from our point of view,” said Massimiliano Dona, president of the National Consumers Union, who complained that Italy was suffering a “structural shortage” of taxi licences and called for a “reasoned liberalisation” of the sector. 

Dona warned that the Italian taxi “emergency” would worsen in the summer tourist season, which would bring millions of visitors — adding to the yawning supply gap.

“We understand that licences have been bought at crazy prices by taxi drivers and they have every interest in keeping taxi numbers at current level,” he said. “But the interest of citizens cannot be neglected.”

Meloni’s three-party coalition — which drew support from the powerful taxi lobby ahead of the 2022 general elections — decided last August to let cities increase the number of licensed taxis plying their streets by up to 20 per cent through an expedited process.

That move followed a summer outcry as foreign visitors were stranded in the blistering heat for hours while waiting for a taxi, resulting in an embarrassing social media storm over the tourists’ plight.

In March, Italy’s competition authority said cities needed to increase their taxi fleets by even more than the government’s prescribed 20 per cent to “improve the efficiency and quality” of services for consumers.

Yet cities seeking to issue new licences in recent months continue to face pressure from taxi unions demanding a say in precisely how many new licences should be issued — and at what price.