About 35 motorcycle taxi drivers from Chicxulub Puerto, who are seeking to form a union, protested at the municipal authority, on Tuesday, February 29 in the evening, to ask Mayor Julián Zacarías Curi and the municipal commissioner, Miguel Canul Durán, to allow them to work.
PROGRESO, YUCATAN (February 4, 2024).- At the protest, they said that almost at noon that day, Felipe Pech, director of municipal Transit, arrived at the town and argued with motorcycle taxi driver Neftalí Ek, who parked his unit outside a fruit store to run an errand.
According to what they said, the official warned that they would confiscate motorcycle taxis in Chicxulub because Pech requested support from the municipal police. For this reason, the 35 members went to the authority’s office, but Canul Durán assured them that he neither complained about them nor asked that their vehicles be detained.
He indicated that, because motorcycle taxis increased, he went to ask the mayor what would happen to the new motorcycle taxi drivers, to find out if they would regularize them, but they did not answer him.
The complainants reported that since 2021 they have been managing permits to work and, as a measure of pressure to speed up the procedures, they invested in the purchase of their motorcycle taxis and began to offer the service.
They highlighted that 35 people, including about seven single mothers and many fishermen, used motorcycle taxis to bring money to their families.
The motorcycle taxi fishermen said that they were having a difficult time because during the northern days, they could not fish and the grouper ban was approaching (from February 1 to March 31).
If they don’t let us offer the taxi service, they said, we will depend only on the support (state support of $4,800 for two months) offered by the ban, which sometimes is not enough.
The transport officer told them that he understood that the motorcycle taxi was a source of livelihood for them and that he would support them if they met the requirements to form their union and obtain permission to work.
After the dialogue, the protesters withdrew and on Wednesday, Jan. 31, they went to the City Hall of Progreso to talk with the mayor, but he was not there; So they left a letter in which they asked for the municipality’s support to carry out the regularization procedures. They delivered the letter to the mayor’s secretary, who promised them a prompt response from the mayor.
This would be the second letter that they sent to Zacarías Curi. The dissidents said that in 2021 they met with the mayor to talk about motorcycle taxis and it was a promise, they even said that they could give them a label that coincides with the Jurassic Trail municipal park, located at the entrance to Chicxulub. However, this request came to nothing.
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