Kochi: The Kochi office of online taxi aggregator Uber witnessed dramatic scenes on Thursday when a driver associated with the operator threatening to commit suicide after climbing up the three-storey building in which the office functions. Navas, 35, from Ponnani said Uber had put him and six others on the wait-list and stopped them from conducting taxi service using the Uber app. After the protest which lasted two hours, Uber agreed to remove all the seven drivers from the list and allow them to run on its platform.
Mr Navas climbed the building at 1:15 pm and threatened to commit suicide after Uber refused to accept the Union's demand. Even as hundreds of people gathered on the premises, Palarivattom police reached the spot and took precautionary measures. The cops asked Mr Navas, who is also the secretary of the All-Kerala Online Taxi Drivers Union (AKOTDU) to come down and discuss the matter peacefully but he refused to consider this but came down by 3.30 pm when Uber officials agreed to consider his demands.
Palarivattom police registered a case against Mr Navas and two other drivers Santhosh and Anees for rioting and unlawful assembly. Meanwhile, Uber said the company had a zero tolerance policy towards violence or misbehavior. “It is for these reasons that some of the driver-partners have been wait-listed from our system, pending enquiry on complaints against them,” it said in a release. “We are in touch with the wait-listed driver partners to address all queries one on one.” AKOTDU had conducted an off-line strike on October 17 following which Uber virtually suspended seven drivers. The union had demanded that Uber revoke the suspension but the operator refused to discuss the matter with the union and made it clear that they will discuss the matter with individual drivers.
