By The taxi strike woes continue in Area I with now the Dongducheon city mayor even getting involved in it:
The Camp Casey enclave’s taxi service has become the basis of a tug of war between a Dongducheon mayor’s angry constituents and military officials trying to provide reliable transportation for servicemembers.
Army and Air Force Exchange Service officials said Friday they still plan to have Kumkang Taxi fulfill its recently signed contract as the area’s primary provider, despite Mayor Oh Se-chang’s decision to order the taxis off the post after less than a day on Tuesday.
Kumkang signed on in the Camp Casey area to replace Worldcup Arirang Tourism Co., whose drivers had been on strike since April 18 throughout U.S. Army garrisons Red Cloud and Yongsan. Yongsan AAFES officials severed their contract with Worldcup Arirang on June 4, citing default on the contract. U.S. Army Garrison-Red Cloud, also known as Area I, did the same in May and gave the company until June 15 to leave its Camp Mobile office.
Kumkang taxis began picking up servicemembers Tuesday at Camp Casey and its outlying areas, only to be called back by the mayor because of an off-post taxi shortage. [Stars & Stripes]
Read the rest of the article because the mayor decision wasn’t just based off a taxi shortage but politics as well because he is trying to protect the jobs of the striking taxi drivers. For those who have never been to Camp Casey, it is a long walk from the PX to many other areas on the camp as well as Camp Hovey. In this below image you can see where the PX is located compared to the rest of the camp:
In this image you can see the rest of Camp Casey including Camp Hovey:
Soldiers would have to walk four miles to get from the PX to Camp Hovey if they can’t catch a taxi or a bus to the camp. That is why on Camp Casey/Hovey cab drivers are more important compared to smaller installations in Uijongbu where it isn’t too far to walk across the post.
The Mayor’s idea for solving this problem though I had to chuckle at because it is an extremely typical camptown solution:
Oh met with Limtiaco and Area I commander Col. Larry Jackson on Wednesday, proposing that AAFES hire Worldcup back under different management and a new name.
But that isn’t what AAFES has in mind, Limtiaco said.
Anyone familar with camptowns knows that this is a common practice when a club gets in trouble for violating USFK policies and are put off limits, change the club’s name and hire a different family member as the manager and pretend nothing happened.
2:06 am on June 19th, 2008 1
Did Arirang management forget to pay their bribes, er greens fees? It will be interesting to see how this goes down. I know the troops have told me these new taxis are much cheaper than the old Worldcup/Arirang/AAFES cabal. Perhaps some of the AAFES folks are also whispering in the good mayors ear (I know, that would seem at cross purposes, but trust me
). After all, if there is less money coming in, there is less opportunity to skim off the top get money for MWR.
/or maybe I'm just jaded.
2:25 am on June 19th, 2008 2
I am sure there was a kickback problem if the Mayor of TDC got involved. The TDC city hall gives the phrase "Den of thieves" a bad name. If the World Cup drivers were worried about their jobs maybe they should have actually tried to do a decent job. Nothing like lack of customer service AND a bad attitude to turn people against you. They won't get any sympathy from the army people since the replacement taxis have been doing a great job since the strike started.
2:30 am on June 19th, 2008 3
I hope the new cab company hires a good lawyer and sues the city because they are in violation of who knows how many laws. They need to escalate it to the provincial level immediatly and get some light shining under that rock. Sunlight: Works on vampires and parasites.
2:52 am on June 19th, 2008 4
It is good to hear the new cab drivers are doing a good job.
The claims that the World Cup taxi drivers are making only a thousand a month I find suspicious because I had a cab driver in Uijongbu tell me before that when he worked as AAFES cab driver in Uijongbu that he was making roughly $25,000 a year working eight hour days and was making slightly less working in a Korean only cab and working 12 hours a day.
He said the AAFES cab driver jobs are highly wanted by all cab drivers because of the hours and pay. The fact other local cab drivers are jumping at the opportunity to work on Camp Casey is not surprising to me because of this. It is also not surprising to me that the TDC mayor is getting involved as well trying to protect one of the local USFK gravy train schemes going on.
4:52 am on June 19th, 2008 5
Math for Leadership…
(Number of Taxis) * (Cost of Taxi + Driver's Pay + Corporate Profit + Payoffs) >= (Number of Regular Buses Making Frequent Rounds on Intelligently Designed Route) * (Expense of Bus and Driver – Amount GIs Will Pay (less semi-rudely expected tip))
With just a quick look at the numbers, I have this wild idea that a bus every 15 minutes is cheaper than taxis…
…plus, they can use my new Army slogan free of charge (as long as I'm credited).
"Today's Army Just Got a Lot Greener!"
7:51 am on July 26th, 2008 6
It still puzzles me how the "Mayor" can recall a privately owned taxi company from fulfiliong a legal contract that they signed with the military.
Has to be a nmajor dispute over kickbacks…i.e. rabid dogs fighting over the last bone of a carcass.
I know that it has to royally suck for the troops, et al, but theyneed to bear with Affes and see thgis thing through to the end. Both the Mayor's office and these corrupt taxi companies need their peepees smacked big time and to be a taught a lesson in biting the hand that feeds you.