The ride-hailing company framed the announcement as a partnership, sweetening the deal for new drivers by nixing the percentage of their fare that goes to Uber for the first six months. The first drivers, it said, had already begun signing up. Uber said it needed several hundred drivers to sign up in order to launch the service.

But many London cabdrivers had a scathing response.

“We don’t need a partnership with Uber,” said the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, a union that represents a majority of the city’s nearly 18,000 cabdrivers, in the headline of a release on Wednesday.

There was “no demand” for such a partnership from taxi drivers, the union’s general secretary, Steve McNamara, said in a statement, adding that their members were unlikely to even consider joining the platform.

“We have no interest in sullying the name of London’s iconic, world-renowned black cab trade by aligning it with Uber, its poor safety record and everything else that comes with it.”

“It’s a big step down for us and demeaning to professional taxi drivers,” said Howard Taylor, who has worked as a London cabdriver for 36 years. He said he had worked too hard to be associated with the company, which he believed offered substandard service. “If they were offering double the meter and no commission, I still wouldn’t sign up with them.”