More Waffle and Misinformation from the Director of LTPH

I have just read the letter sent to the new chairman of the RMT London Taxi branch by director of the LTPH John Mason on Taxi Leaks and sat there speechless at the hostile attitude of the head of our authority towards a group of ordinary working Taxi drivers who have formed themselves in to a new branch of an established Union.

LTPH Director John Mason

His letter is full of inconsistent points and misinformation, in a vain attempt to justify not meeting with this group of drivers.
In January last year I was present at a meeting with John Mason when he met a small group of drivers along with a full time union rep. At this meeting Mason promised to have regular formal and meaningful meetings with the branch, who have been ostracised by the United Trade Group.


At that time the general secretary of the LTDA, worried about falling membership numbers, became increasingly paranoid about just how many drivers were subscribing to the new RMT Taxi Branch and had even printed articles in its in house paper asking the question, just how many members do the RMT have.


It appears that after this meeting, John Mason suddenly came up with a new formula for a drivers association engagement policy. This basically preclude any new organisation from meeting the criteria as it would be an infringement of the data protection act to pass details of membership names and addresses to a third party.


It transpires that the union and associations of the United Trade Group would not have to meet this new requirement.
If they did only the LTDA would be able to consult on the trades behalf as they would be the only group with enough members to meet the requirement.
They would however be putting themselves on offer for breaching the data protection act.


But we know all this! It just filled out a bit of space on the response to the RMT chair.


What really took my breath away was the fact that John Mason has tried to justify LTPH's inaction to achieve desired results with regard to:

• TOUTING: Click Here.
• PRIVATE HIRE PARKING ON TAXI RANKS: Click here.
• CAB-RELATED SEXUAL ASSAULTS: Click Here.      

Not wishing to get involved with protracted correspondence with John Mason I would just like to reply to his letter and point out a few fundamental misguided inaccuracies in his reply.

1. "Abacus, actions taken by us in light of the taxi trade concerns regarding this venue".  What action would this be? We have video evidence of the Clipboard Johnnie, touting outside the club, drivers are allowed to illegally park and in essence form an unauthorised Taxi rank.
2.   "With regards to the Grosvenor House Hotel, we have taken considerable action to deal with concerns raised by taxi trade relating to this location, including increased enforcement of the parking restrictions utilising CCTV and we will continue to monitor the situation closely". It is obvious to the trade that these measures are not working as every time there is a function at this hotel Private hire are parked on the licensed taxi rank and are allowed to form an unauthorised rank, sometimes fed by clip board johnnies, who are allowed to tout inside the venue.
3. "Since August 2008 590 TfL licensed drivers have had their license revoked under the “one strike and your out” policy. This really isn't good enough. The figures equate to just over 200 PHV drivers per year thats 4 a week. Now do the maths! 30 enforcement officers available, 23 on days and 7 on permanent nights, (statistic ironically taken from the PH&C news), thats 7.5 enforcement officers = 1 arrest between them per week. Its this type of inefficiency that made TOCU a laughing stock which would not be tolerated in any other area of TfL. 
4. "Although we have seen reductions in the market share of illegal minicabs and cab-related sexual assaults since this work started in 2002 we know that there is still more to do to continue to improve public safety and reduce the number of cab-related sexual offences". That is so true. In the reply Mason tries to turn around the disgraceful fact that since 2008 there has been a rise of 54% in sexual assaults including rapes in minicabs and massaged the figures to show a dramatic drop when compared to a figure taken just before minicabs were licensed. You can massage the statistics all you like john, but an incident rate of 12-13 assaults including 2-3 rapes every month is still a complete disgrace.
5. "In conclusion I totally reject your allegation that there has been “total inaction” by TfL". Really? And we totally reject the allegation that you have done your best to keep passengers safe! In our opinion its as if TfL has been in a coma for the past ten years. The STaN agenda has led to a problem that is now so far out of hand, our licensing authority seem completely clueless to find a solution acceptable by both PH and Licensed Taxi's.

 Never Again Johnnie.
In February 2008 Windsor House was shaken to its foundations when the Taxi trade united for one afternoon over the placement of a "police protected, private hire rank" in Whitcomb Street, which had full autherisation from TfL and at that time the PCO. It took the trade three months to get its act together and after a successful demonstration that achieved large media coverage the rank was scrapped.  Then the Trade came together over the "Murderer on the knowledge". Peter Hendy swore he would never be put in this situation again and sacked PCO director "Only Black cabs are allowed to ply for hire" Ed Thompson!


When questioned about the concerns of the trade he told a select transport committee that "they should get out more often".


John Mason, the only job you have done well is the job you were hired to do by Peter Hendy, that being to fragment and keep fragmented the representative groups of the Taxi trade.

What do you really fear from the RMT or the UCG?


News Flash
Just read page 48 of the PHC news and it turns out John Mason quite happy to meet with the GMB union. Now under his rules of engagement the GMB would need 5% of the PH trade as members. In case you cant do the maths John thats roughly 4000 members (I dont think so).


One rule for them and one rule for us?