By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Police officers hang out in back of Charley's Taxi on
Ala Moana yesterday during a heated meeting between
drivers and management where about 50 drivers aired
their concerns. The owner called the police just in case
they were needed, which they weren't.

Taxi drivers
threaten strike over
fees, fines, rents

They want Charley's, the
isles' oldest cab company, to increase
fares and cut expenses

By Craig Gima
Star-Bulletin

When he first started driving a cab for Charley's Taxi eight years ago, Shiekh Ali says he made $35,000 in one year. Last year, he says he took a loss.

"The tourists coming in, they don't spend money as much as they used to spend," he said.

Ali said he works up to seven days a week and 12 hours a day, and will take home $100 to $120 after a regular 10-hour shift. But his expenses are going up.

Ali is one of about 130 Charley's Taxi drivers who have organized into a drivers' association. The drivers would like to see Charley's reduce the rent and other fees the company charges its drivers, or raise the meter rate so drivers can make more money.

But Dale Evans, the president of Charley's Taxi and Limousine, said her company is also being hurt by the bad economy. She said her business is down by 10 percent.

"We're trying to survive," she said of Hawaii's oldest and second largest cab company.

Evans said the company's concession fees have gone up, and that Charley's needs to charge drivers the general excise tax on the rent the drivers pay to the company.

"We can't absorb that cost anymore," she said.

The company has an initial meter rate of $1.50, 50 cents below what they are allowed to charge by law.

Evans said 60 percent of the cab companies in Honolulu charge below what the law allows.

She said the company is going to look at a fare increase, but she's concerned that increasing rates could actually decrease business.

"In 1973, we raised the meter rate when the economy was down," she said.

"The drivers were averaging 17 trips a day, it went down to seven trips a day. Because there was less business, the drivers lost more money than we would have gained."

The drivers say something has to give.

They say the rent Charley's charges is more than any other taxi company in town. They say Charley's also has other fees and fines that other companies do not.

Shaikh Siddiq, one of the organizers of the drivers' association, said the drivers may engage in a work stoppage if their demands are not met.

"We don't want to be victims anymore," Ali said.

But Siddiq also noted a work stoppage would be hard on the drivers, who are already struggling to make ends meet.

About 50 drivers met with Evans in a small conference room yesterday afternoon for more than an hour to air their grievances.

After the meeting, both the drivers and management said the other side was not listening to what they were saying.

Some of the drivers lingered in the meeting room and began chanting for a strike until company officials asked them to leave and called police.

Both sides say one of the main reasons for the dispute is the bad economy.

"The politicians say the economy is coming back. We know the economy is getting worse," Evans said. "What politicians say and what is reality, I think they are living on another world."