Driver wins battle to secure unpaid taxi fares

A former Hamilton Red Cabs taxi driver has been repaid money owed to him after a four-month battle with the company, but more than half a dozen of the city's drivers are still waiting to be paid back.

Hamilton taxi driver Ray Andersen's lawyer received a bank cheque of $2470.59 only hours before last Friday's noon deadline when liquidation notices were going to be placed in the Waikato Times.

Mr Andersen had been chasing the $4177.23 owed to him for contract work he carried out from the start of the year.

He said he resigned in July after realising he was not going to be paid. An earlier Disputes Tribunal ruling ordered Red Cabs director Arthur George to repay the total sum by September 22, 2009, but the deadline passed and Mr Andersen had only received $1706.64.

Mr George was unavailable for comment, but in a chairman's report in October said a loss of contracts, late payment of invoices and the recession had led to owner/drivers not being paid for docket work.

Mr Andersen told the Times in July he would not be walked over, and his actions encouraged more than a handful of other drivers at both Red Cabs in Hamilton and its sister company Kiwi Cabs in Whangarei.

"I had to fight tooth and nail to get that money. It's cost me $3500 to get that $4200," Mr Andersen told the Waikato Times this week.

"If this is what it takes to get money out of someone, no wonder a lot of people give up on it. I wasn't prepared to give up on it – I did it out of principle."

A group of four other drivers – Arthur and Dallas Hawes, Hong Vu and Des Mullaney – are still $54,000 out of pocket, and they said more than $100,000 was owed to owner/drivers of Kiwi Cabs in Whangarei and Red Cabs in Hamilton. They alleged the taxi company had been withholding money from customers which it should have been passing on to the drivers.

Arthur Hawes, a former Red Cabs driver whose wife Dallas is owed $28,182, said they all had hearings in January with the Disputes Tribunal after Red Cabs failed to pay their statements of demands and disputed the amounts.

"It's caused serious financial problems," Mr Hawes said.

The drivers said they would also proceed with winding the company up if they needed to.

However, an insider told the Waikato Times the company was having serious financial problems. Documents leaked to the Times showed the company posted a loss of $45,534 for the year ending March 31, 2009.

Earlier this year, three of Kiwi Cabs' committee members resigned after growing concerns about the direction the company was taking.

- © Fairfax NZ News