Taxi organisations across Spain have organised a national strike for the 1st of August in protest at a new law that is designed to free up competition in the sector.
The new Ley de Ordenación del Transporte Terrestre (LOTT) aims to allow private vehicle rental with chauffeurs to be permitted. Currently, companies who rent out vehicles with drivers can only offer 1 vehicle for every 30 taxi licenses in the town of operation, which in practise means very few.
The new law does away with all this protectionism, meaning that anyone will be able to rent out vehicles with drivers, and taxi organisations claim that this means that anyone can setup to be a taxi without having to comply with taxi regulations. They claim that the sector will see 20,000 jobs go as a result of the law, taxi drivers not traditionally being content with doing things by halfs.
The government insists this is not the aim of the law, but that it simply wants to bring the law governing private hire vehicles into the 21st century.