When maxi-taxi operators launched a planned three-day strike across south Trinidad on Wednesday, the industrial action did not result in a full shutdown of brown-band and black-band services that serve key communities in the region, including Siparia, Penal, Point Fortin, Princes Town and its surrounding outskirts. An on-the-ground visit by reporters from the Express on Wednesday morning revealed that four brown-band maxis were already queued at the San Fernando-to-Point Fortin route stand located at King’s Wharf, and by 4 p.m. that same day, two 25-seater maxis remained waiting to fill their passenger capacities before departing.
For many of the drivers who chose to continue operating rather than join the full strike, competing financial obligations left them no other option. “I support the cause, but in my heart, I really can’t stay home right now,” one anonymous driver explained. Another driver working the brown-band San Fernando-to-Penal stand on San Fernando’s St James Street echoed this sentiment, outlining the daily financial pressures that force him to keep working: “I have my bills to pay. I have children to send to school and my loan to pay; I can’t afford to take three days off.”
Even among drivers who showed up to work, many expressed public support for the strike movement, framing shared grievances as a collective concern for all maxi-taxi operators. “If one man has a grievance, it is everybody’s grievance, so I supporting them,” one driver on the San Fernando-to-Penal stand noted. Others took the opportunity to highlight longstanding unaddressed infrastructure issues, including the lack of proper public washroom facilities at route hubs that drivers rely on daily.
In the Princes Town area, where black-band maxis operate routes to Rio Claro, Tableland, Moruga, St Mary’s, Sixth Company and New Grant, drivers reported that roughly 65% of operators remained on the road on strike day one. While some operators did join the walkout, by midday, dozens of maxis had returned to the main hub to pick up passengers. One veteran driver, who has worked the Princes Town-to-Rio Claro route for 32 years, argued that a full shutdown would unfairly harm the general public, many of whom rely on maxi-taxi services for critical needs. “People want to go to the doctor, people have serious appointments, some of us have to be outside at least to take care of that, because we depend on the passengers all the rest of days,” he explained. “We can’t be ungrateful and leave nobody able to get around.” The veteran driver went so far as to say that a full, region-wide strike would amount to holding the entire country hostage to operator demands.
Primo Charles, a maxi driver based in Princes Town, added that many of the core grievances behind the strike do not actually impact routes in his area. Disputes over national highway speed limits and approved bus route access, two of the strike’s central demands, do not affect Princes Town operators, he explained. Instead, the biggest challenge for drivers in his region is the rising competition from unlicensed providers: white panel vans and other private-for-hire vehicles that illegally poach passengers from established maxi-taxi routes.
Illegal unregulated competition is indeed one of the core issues that prompted the three-day strike action. Other key grievances pushed by striking operators include the recent increase in the national maxi-taxi speed limit from 65 km/h to 80 km/h, unclear processes for the transfer of maxi-taxi operating licenses, insufficient investment in route and hub infrastructure, and long-outstanding payments owed to school transport operators for contracted school services.
While brown-band and black-band services remained largely operational across most of south Trinidad, the San Fernando-to-Chaguanas route – served by green-band maxis – saw the most severe disruption on strike day one. Most green-band drivers traveled to Port of Spain’s City Gate to join strike demonstrations, leaving the local St James Street stand in San Fernando nearly empty. When reporters arrived Wednesday morning, only one driver was on site operating the route, out of roughly 200 registered maxis that normally serve the corridor. Explaining his choice to work despite the strike, the driver emphasized his responsibility to vulnerable community members who depend on the service: “when essential services are on strike, somebody has to take care of the most vulnerable in society.”