Perhaps it is news that the more conservative taxi sector does not like too much, but the reality is that except for the exterior color – some whites with a white stripe in the case of Madrid and other blacks with colored advertising – the taxi business and of the VTC, at least in the capital, has little different. Barcelona, as the last defensive bastion of the taxi led by Elite Taxi, may not have reached this point. One that already resonated years ago at the dawn of the first steps of Uber and Cabify. Far are those first operations of two companies that, now, govern with their business model of multimodality in transport: taxi, VTC, scooters, motorcycles or rented cars. Anything goes for the new era of transportation.
Be that as it may, the VTC sector has experienced its pluses and minuses in Spain. Soon he found a taxi very protective of a business that he thought 100% his. Two general strikes in the sector and several lawsuits in different instances regulated a business model that did not exist until then. Unlike its origin in the United States, in Spain – and in similar ways in Europe – regulation led Uber and Cabify down the path of VTCs. The imported model of cars with private drivers who operated for Uber to get a bonus was no longer worth it. From there, came the large fleets of VTC owners and a bubble that, as happened with the taxi a few years ago, inflated the price of public application licenses.
New agreement, new rules?
The evolution of VTC is living history of the sector. One that now achieves one more step. One that, in addition, was an easy resource for the taxi sector when it came to categorizing the service of the drivers of platforms such as Uber and Cabify. In this sense, Aseval and Unauto – VTC sector employers – together with UGT, CCOO and SLT – majority unions – have signed the first labor agreement in the sector. This will be applied to almost 20,000 drivers of the capitall –almost 60% of all drivers of this type in Spain–. Regardless of whether they are part of a small company, the ones that used to manage the sector before the arrival of Uber and Cabify, or if they are part of large fleets.
What does this new agreement imply? First of all, and perhaps most important to fleet managers, is the agreed raise. 9% for 40-hour workdays. They go up from 13,510 to 14,720 euros, specifically. It will be necessary to see the effect and to whom the rise in operating costs affects a sector that, since the pandemic, has fairly fair accounts. The decline in business, now more recovered, but the rise in the prices of electricity and gasoline are putting the national business fabric in check.
However, it is the other points of the agreement that already resemble a taxi that, among other issues, complained about the permission of the VTC to circulate 24/7 without limitations. Like white cars VTC drivers must rest two days a week (Saturday and Sunday or Sunday and Monday). Similar to the taxi that requires a weekday (depending on the one assigned to each car) and a weekend day. They are forced to work days of 8 hours – a model also similar to that of the taxi driver – with mandatory stops to eat and rest. Finally, 22 vacation days a year are required, 10 of them in a row in the summer months. Again, a measure that equates VTC drivers with those of the taxi that, for a few years, has forced them to free a fortnight in the month of August.