Taxi, Taxi!!

Berlin Taxi drivers are upset at the high cost of gasoline, and the low cost of short fares, and are saying that it is becoming impossible to make a living. So this morning as we were trying to work, there were about 100 slow-moving taxis parading down the Ku'damm with horns blaring, ignoring traffic lights, and generally making a traffic jam. This is their way of striking I suppose.

I had heard on the radio news that there would be a disturbance with the taxis of some sort, so at least there was a warning I suppose. The full story

While I understand the need to protest in order to push change, I have never thought striking a reasonable course of action. But then I grew up in Pennsylvania as the coal miners struck themselves out of jobs, then the steel workers did the same. The air has never been cleaner in Pennsylvania since the cost of milling the iron in America got so expensive that it was cheaper to haul it across the ocean.

One of my coworkers put it quite succinctly when she noted that if the taxi drivers are upset about the cost of gasoline, then they should be walking as a way of protest.

“Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair”
- George Burns