For More Information, Please Call: Bhairavi Desai at 917-945-7286
TAXI WORKERS ALLIANCE ANNOUNCES STRIKE OVER GPS TRACKING OF TAXIS
Press Conference
Drivers To Be Joined By Ed Ott, head of Central Labor Council
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
1:00pm
Penn Station: 7th Avenue Taxi Line
Members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance announced plans for a city-wide strike of the city's 13,187 taxis to protest the imposition of tracking and other technologies in all yellow cabs. "The TLC has no right to invade our privacy. It's an insult to our dignity," says 15-year veteran Mamnun Ul Haq of Brooklyn. "If the City Council and Mayor continue to stay silent as drivers' privacy and economics are trampled on, we will strike in September. The TLC rules with impunity and treats drivers like second-class citizens," says NYTWA Executive Director Bhairavi Desai. An exact date will be announced in mid-August. The 8,400-member NYTWA has been aggressively collecting "Strike Pledge Cards" and increasing its membership to 10,000 drivers by the end of August. Medallion yellow taxicabs serve over 800,000 riders a day, including 14,000 trips from the city's two airports.
Drivers are most outraged over the one technology component which is not related to customer service, the GPS tracking of taxicabs and meters. "Even if I want to drive with my family to the park, I have to log in. If I'm an independent contractor, why is it the TLC's or the garage's business where I am when I'm off-duty," asks driver Lea Acey. "It beeps all day long if I don't log in, like an ankle bracelet they put on criminals." Drivers are also outraged that the TLC plans to use GPS data in their administrative courts. "When did TLC become judge, jury and executioner? What ever happened to the Constitution and due process? Don't they exist for taxi drivers," asks Mr. Haq.
The NYTWA says both the Department of Investigation and the Comptroller's Office never investigated charges of favoritism in the TLC's awarding of a contract to a vendor whose CEO is the President of the taxi garages' association. The association's Vice President for Business Development is the former First Deputy Commissioner of the TLC. The GPS vendor's Vice President of Operations is the TLC's former Deputy Commissioner of Safety and Emissions, the TLC officer in charge of all vehicle related issues. "After an oversight hearing, (City Council Transportation Committee) Chair John Liu called the GPS tracking 'unjustified,' but the TLC has moved forward without any accountability. How could anyone not think this is a scam when the only ones who'll benefit are the taxi bosses, not drivers and not even the riding public," says Ms. Desai.
New York drivers are being joined by Philadelphia taxi drivers who say NYC regulators are stopping their city from canceling the same program despite massive failures with the system. "When we drop off the passenger, the credit card machine takes more than three minutes to process, imagine the canyon effect in NYC. Neither the riders or the drivers want to waste our time. Sometimes we wait up to two weeks to get the credit card payment," says Ronald Blount, President of the Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania. "Now the regulators tell us to suffer another six months. If NYC wasn't rushing to push this through, maybe our misery would come to an end sooner in Philadelphia." Ms. Blount adds that one of the four vendors outfitting NYC cabs has the sole contract in Philadelphia. "In both cities, it's been about rewarding industry insiders and trampling on taxi drivers."
The drivers have also gained the support of the Central Labor Council, the country's largest labor federation with over 1 million members in NYC. Executive Director Ed Ott called the technology "…a backdoor form of surveillance and send the wrong message to our hard-working taxi drivers…The fact of the matter is, this technology constitutes an invasive and unnecessary intrusion into the privacy of our taxi workforce, as well as an unwelcome and unfair pay cut in the form of banking processing fees for credit card acceptance capability."
NYTWA questions why the TLC is bringing back TV monitors even though they failed public approval in the past and were rated low in the most recent pilot program focus groups where riders said all they were interested in was time of day, weather and location of the car. The NYTWA says less costly, simpler alternatives could have been adopted. "The TLC could have added hand-held credit card readers for $60, without having to add one more gadget that nobody wants. I hated listening to Elmo telling riders to buckle up 30 times a day. Now, they want to pollute my car space with ads. If my passenger can't turn it off, I'll have to stop the car and pull over. How is this serving the public," says 35-year veteran Beresford Simmons .
NYTWA rejects the TLC's assertion that the 2004 fare raise was given to pay for the technology. "In the world's most expensive city, whoever heard of using old incomes to pay for something three years later? The TLC is being absurd and duplicitous," says 30-year veteran William Lindauer. Drivers are now paying $3.25 per gallon to gas up, compared to $1.80 at the time of the 2004 raise, their only one in 11 years.
Drivers will have to pay outright for the technology. "My broker told us he has a new cost he can't afford so he's charging drivers more. I'm paying an extra $1,300 this year. Everyone in the industry knows it's because of the GPS," says Mohammad Abdul. Drivers also pay $15 per week for use of the mandated credit card readers and lose 5% on each transaction, including tolls. If any one of the four component technology breaks down for 48 hours straight, the car must go off-duty and be reinstated only after passing a TLC inspection. "We could lose 3, 4 days just because a luxury item breaks down. Who is going to pay my lease or make up my income for those days," asks an angry Mr. Abdul. Drivers say the backseat TV monitors also increases the risk of cabs being broken into or vandalized, adding to their financial losses. And drivers worry about the drain on the car's battery, which for hybrids, must be changed yearly at an average of $3,000.
"So drivers working 12 hours every day still don't have health insurance, but at least New Yorkers who are tired of looking out of windows will be able to see on a map that we're on 26th Street and Park Avenue," says an angry Victor Salazar. "Of course I'll strike. We all will."
