Even as strike ac­tion for Route Two Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers en­tered its sec­ond day yes­ter­day, sev­er­al dri­vers re­turned to the streets con­duct­ing busi­ness as usu­al.

While maxi taxi op­er­a­tors in South Trinidad say they sup­port the con­cerns raised by dri­vers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the na­tion­wide shut­down over out­stand­ing Gov­ern­ment pay­ments, il­le­gal com­pe­ti­tion and speed lim­it reg­u­la­tions, many have cho­sen to re­main on the road, say­ing they can­not af­ford to lose a day’s earn­ings.

Thir­teen trade unions, call­ing them­selves the Pro­gres­sive In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions, are now threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion against the Gov­ern­ment over the State of Emer­gency (SOE) reg­u­la­tions that re­strict pub­lic protests at 15 des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tions na­tion­wide. The unions warn that the mea­sures un­der­mine con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms and se­vere­ly lim­it tra­di­tion­al labour rights.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pledged that her Gov­ern­ment will as­sist maxi taxi dri­vers “in any way pos­si­ble” as she de­scribed them as de­cent, hard­work­ing cit­i­zens with le­git­i­mate griev­ances.

The call for a na­tion­wide shut­down on Fri­day con­tin­ues and ac­cord­ing to so­cial ac­tivist and or­gan­is­er Alyssa Phillip, it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for cit­i­zens to let their voic­es be heard in a peace­ful man­ner.

Maxi taxi op­er­a­tors say the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to open the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) to mo­torists dur­ing the on­go­ing trans­port dis­rup­tion has cre­at­ed se­vere con­ges­tion. Videos on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day showed stand­still traf­fic near Arou­ca.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ap­pear to be at odds over re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for is­sues raised by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors dur­ing this week’s in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

For many com­muters this week, get­ting to work, school or prob­a­bly try­ing to make it to an ap­point­ment on time has be­come a re­al chal­lenge, as maxi taxi op­er­a­tors take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion across Trinidad.

Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our yes­ter­day de­clined to com­ment on the on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the var­i­ous maxi taxi routes as day two of the maxi taxi strike con­tin­ued.

For­mer Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to re­ject calls by some maxi taxi op­er­a­tors to in­crease the high­way speed lim­it for maxi taxis from 65 kilo­me­tres per hour to 80 km/h, ar­gu­ing that the in­dus­try must first demon­strate it can con­sis­tent­ly com­ply with the ex­ist­ing law.

Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has nom­i­nat­ed Trinidad-born for­mer Flori­da lieu­tenant gov­er­nor Jen­nifer John­son-Car­roll to serve as the next Unit­ed States am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The on­go­ing maxi taxi strike has trig­gered a surge in de­mand for al­ter­na­tive trans­porta­tion ser­vices, with ride-share op­er­a­tors re­port­ing in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty while taxi dri­vers voiced sup­port for the con­cerns raised by maxi op­er­a­tors.