Vic taxi drivers to protest planned wage reductions

Victorian taxi drivers are planning to protest against moves by taxi operators to take a bigger slice of income and reduce drivers' wages.
Most taxi drivers earn about $8 an hour under a split payment system where they get 50 per cent of the takings for a shift, but taxi owners want to change the split payment system to 60-40, blaming rising fuel prices and extra costs.
Vice president of the Taxi Driver's Association, Wally Hunt, says owners will already get a boost from the 4 per cent fare increase introduced yesterday.
He says taxi drivers are already poorly paid and will protest if their wages are cut further.
"It's going to be disastrous and they can look for an absolute revolt," Mr Hunt said.
"Drivers are not going to take it, and never will, never should and the drivers are getting far less than they deserve and share of the fares as it stands.
"There'll be a lot of cars sitting in depots not driven and there'll be lots of drivers in the welfare queues, and the drivers aren't getting much more than they would if they were in a welfare queue anyway."
Taxi Operators Association president Geoff Bell says cab owners should wait until the fare increase in September to reduce the percentage paid to drivers.
"Since December taxi operators have been losing about 3 per cent, about minus 3 per cent so even with this 4.2 per cent increase, we're still on a knife edge and its time the government realised the industry is in crisis," Mr Bell said.
Mr Bell admits drivers are poorly paid, but says owners are not making big profits either.
"They do earn a very poor return for their work and operators are in the same position, we get nothing out of it," he said.
"We are public transport, but we're not a charity, we're privately funded and if the government wants us to run as public transport then someone has to pay."