sheep in wolfs clothing don't know how to spell doofus. would you please stop posting as other people on this site. please stick to your known names and aliases. i seem to recall you stating somewhere back a few weeks ago that you only post under your own name. now someone says you post under a bunch of different names. and now i take it you are posting under other posters names. that seems a little bit unethical and dishonest to me. could you please stop? thank you.
no i'm not that sheep in wolfs clothing. thanks for asking though.
Hey Wolf,
You don't need to be a wolf in sheeps clothing. You are a Wolf without your clothes. Ahwooooooooooooooo!
My short answer to the question is simply this:
Chicago cabdrivers should be making a lot more than they currently can. We need a significant fare increase.
I will post a much longer reply within a week when I have the time.
-Mike Foulks, President, Chicago Cabdriver Organization (CCO)
George === It takes some time to compose anything worth considering as I am sure you understand. For that reason, a much longer posting will follow in a few days.
My perspective is different from that of most other drivers - for better or worse, I have been part of the industry for close to 40 years having begun to drive at the time of the Democratic National Convention of 1968 ("The Whole World is Watching"). Not having driven since 1975, my knowledge of what drivers make is only by way of hearsay from them = that, and access to thousands of driver tax returns used to prepare affidavits concerning the value of time lost by drivers after they were hurt. I know the returns reflected only just a small portion of their income - save for perhaps half a dozen drivers who were super patriots and told the absolute truth and paid a fair measure of taxes to this great country of ours.
I also know that over half of the drivers didn't report a dime of income - they lived under the table and continue to do so right down to the present. Over the years, I have presented thousands of injury claims for drivers who had to say they continued to work while hurt rather than have to admit they just didn't file tax returns - they lost plenty of time, but they couldn't prove it without exposing themselves to prosecution for tax evasion or causing themselves to be impeached in court.
To get a measure of what cab drivers make and, through that, what they should make, you are going to need to get honest cab drivers. This is a tough commodity to find. I doubt I've come across half a dozen who told the God's truth in a Form 1040 in 32 years of representing them - I've had over 5000 cab drivers as clients over the years. Of course, the pervasive dishonesty among drivers in respect to income reportage makes it much the more difficult to gather reliable statistics to present to Commissioner Reyes or the Transportation Committee in making a case for a meter raise.
But in the 21st Century there ARE ways to get at some of the numbers: meters DO keep tabs on revenue a cab generates - it's done electronically, and those meters have no motivation to lie. Yi Tang has the technical sophistication to give you ways of tapping meters for data. Prognostication based on what the meters show along with the cost of gasoline, mechanical work, car washes, license fees, interest payments on loans used to purchase cars and/or medallions and typical costs of fines at 400 West Superior can be used to get to a reasonable approximation of the gross income of a typical driver - without taking tips into consideration, of course. That figure varies from driver to driver because many spend a good bit of a 12 hour shift sitting in restaurants, OTB parlors, the lot at O'Hare, sleeping at home or dozing at posts, etc. Plenty of them are "minute men" these days: the kind who drive from 5:00 A.M. until 5:59 P.M. when they get to the gas pump. They have to be. But there are all types.
The income of a new-bee driver is probably easiest to focus in on based on a number of assumptions even without a PhD in Economics.
Further detail will follow in the next couple of days as indicated above. The gathering of figures is no small task because of the obstacles the drivers present for themselves, and I do believe this is the only way the DCS and the City are ever going to be sold on a significant fare hike. Homework is hard to do in an industry where the participants are so fiercely independent.
Donald Nathan
George,
Briefly...not every cabdiver wants a fare increase, for both good and bad reasons. I have doubts on 'selling' anything to the 'city', if you mean the Daley Administration (which includes DCS Comissioner Reyes and Shellie Riedle).
I also think that the range of 'what we should be making' will be great, and that our adversaries will focus on the low end. 'What we are making' will be regarded with a lot of suspicion, and again, our adversaries will focus on the wrong end of the range.
This is why I still believe that the request for meter receipts and the like is not a genuine attempt to treat the drivers with the respect they deserve.
It seems by the DCS testimony at the hearing that what was provided by drivers was abused to serve the interest of the City to recommend a denial of any fare increase.
The most obvious factor which has changed since the last fare increase is a very public one...
Just look at the prices of gasoline posted at the corner gas station.
If we can't get the City to agree that what we need is at least 'MORE', then I don't think the City is the most productive route to take to get what we need.
It is through the Transportation Committee and the Alderpersons themselves our relief will finally come.
-Mike Foulks, President, Chicago Cabdriver Organization (CCO)
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Mike,
The trouble is trying to sell that to the city. Everybody wants more pay.
I think we need to benchmark what we should be making and compare that to what we are making.
George Lutfallah
Chicago Dispatcher
See Mike, we agree on the essentials.
This is exactly what I have been "spewing" and preaching about for over a year now.
THey use our inability to come with the private financial to deny a raise.
They City should be looking at the City, ****** State and Federal economic indicators like the rest of the business world to determine if and when a rate increase is needed.
And they should be required by law to do so.
Thanks for putting it so clearly. Good job, dog!
Wolf
( 狼來了)
PS: I believe that The Troll, Cyberman, The Analyst, The Insider, The Outsider, The Sidewinder, Behinder and a host of others would agree, too.
They City should be looking at the City, ****** State and Federal economic indicators like the rest of the business world to determine if and when a rate increase is needed.
Those asterics in previous post is not a prohibited word, it was C O U N T Y as in Cook C O U N T Y economic indicators.
Wow, software error results in over-enforcement of the filter.
wjw
Thanks, Wolf.
I would lick your hand, but I consider that type of behavior disgusting. Besides, you just used it to pat my head and I have been rolling around in so much dog **** since our 'Master' (Daley) rewarded our loyal service with a bath.
If we are offered kibble then we might bite the hand that 'feeds'.
A reasonable rate increase should only come when we cabdrivers ask for one. This is, after all, OUR BUSINESS.
Woof, Woof!
-Mike Foulks
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
See Mike, we agree on the essentials.
This is exactly what I have been "spewing" and preaching about for over a year now.
THey use our inability to come with the private financial to deny a raise.
They City should be looking at the City, ****** State and Federal economic indicators like the rest of the business world to determine if and when a rate increase is needed.
And they should be required by law to do so.
Thanks for putting it so clearly. Good job, dog!
Wolf
( 狼來了
PS: I believe that The Troll, Cyberman, The Analyst, The Insider, The Outsider, The Sidewinder, Behinder and a host of others would agree, too.
I think George means by this issue as much as anything how much a cab driver ought to be making in American society, given American standards for remuneration at various jobs.
A tough one to figure. We're in the transportation industry. What value does society place on the skills of people in that profession?
What value ought society to place on them? I kept saying we are in a low-skills profession until a Londoner objected (not the cheery Alan Fisher!) And so I have tried to moderate my view on this topic. But maybe I'm thinking like a yuppie----I think you
should be paid for a skill, when in point of fact in many professions you get paid for what a combination of what the market will bear and what your union can force people to pay you.
I think George's comparison to bus drivers is a good one. They make pretty good pay as fixed-route transportation specialists.
Hacks don't work a fixed route. Should we be paid
less or more for our freedom in this regard? I say close to as much as bus drivers. Our role in the transportation scheme of a city, though less sexy and conspicuous as buses and trains, is close to being as important. It seems to me there was
some transportation professor somewhere bemoaning
(at least the American) lack of appreciation for cabs in a general philsoophy of American transportation.
How about the danger of the job? Does society pay people more to work dangerous jobs? Not always, I guess.
The powers-that-be have an immense effect on what a cab driver makes, since they determine the vital cabs-to-business ratio in a given market and in regulated markets determine he fare levels. But as we know, they're political, they seldom look at the philosophical issue of what a cab driver ought to have a chance to make in pay. They have a lot of people to keep happy, least of all the cab
driver. They adjust the fare level and amount of cabs allowed in the market to please the cab taking public and other interests.
I'm not answering Mr. Lutfallah's question. I would say that in a given market examine what a bus driver makesfor a forty hour week and make some formulaic adjustment, with precise reasons for doing so —tell us why, precisely a cab driver should be earning less than a fixed route driver — there are perhaps many valid reasons---and figure out the cab driver's
rightful pay from there.
Al Marotta
Boston, MA
Much of this discussion seems to be based on what others -- society, the City, passengers, other cab drivers, lawyers, doctors and tribal Chiefs -- deem an appropriate "value" level for our services.
What is our presumed, estimated, theoretical "value" worth to any of them?
From a vantage of worker/labor history, a cab driver, like any other "machine operator" is a necessary evil, an expense, a mere extension of piece of capital equipment (the machine a cabbie operates).
Ideally a cab driver or any person who engages in manual labor is the highest form of practical energy: self-directed, no buttons, switches or software required.
That is the number one reason why passengers request receipts for the end of trip, it is a tax-deductible expense.
To the governing authorities a cab driver and the taxi he/she operates is a valuable source of revenue.
As things stand now with respect to a cab driver's relationship to the general public, a cab driver is necessary, globe-warming evil; to the City, a cab driver is source of cash, to the taxi owners from whom a cab driver leases, a paying steady customer.
That's the down-and-dirty, bare essential truth.
Maybe cab drivers need to stop asking others what they are worth, what their value is, what they should get paid.
But to do that you need to consider that those who have already asked that question have come to the cold, hard reality, the inescapable fact that there have to be very basic, systemic changes in the relationships between drivers, owners, and the City.
The bad news: There are powerful forces at work, directly and through proxy that have and will continue to maintain the current status quo of the relationships that now exist - the power elite, someone called them.
The infant "movement" to identify this situation, to address the problems and offer appropriate changes inherent in this system, has been soundly quashed at practically every turn by the very people who would be the beneficiaries of such changes.
الذئب
Subject: Bill Gates speech
Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! To anyone
with kids of any age, here's some advice.
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically
correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
> Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!
> Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
> Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
> Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
> Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
> Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
> Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
> Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest
resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
> Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
> Rule 10: Tel evision is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
> Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
If you agree, pass it on.
If you can read this - Thank a teacher!
If you are reading it in English -Thank a soldier!
amen, I think.
as cab driver for mor than tweny years I tell you every cab driver know that making money is not the issue here and the gas prices will not effect the income that much. The issue here should be the unexplainable increase the price of the medallion and the monopoly and who is behind it. The city should work to find common intrest between preserving cab drivers dignity by allowing them to hold on their dream of owning their own medallion. Also trimming the influance of special group whose trying to control cab drivers destiny.
Here's a posting that's right on the money --- gas prices do make some difference in a cab driver's day-to-day income, but the outrageous and ever rising price tag on medallions held by monopolists, many of whom aren't even living in the Midwest is much more distressing long term.
The real squeeze isn't just going to come from the oil barons around the planet, and the focus of the concerned in our community needs to be on controling this commodity first and foremost.
Donald Nathan
The City resolutely ignores any talk of re-instituting the so-called "senior driver" medallion lottery.
It's Rule 18 or 19, which used to authorize the medallion lottery, but now authorizes the "auction," which should be outlawed, if it isn't, in light of state law and case law providing for "licensing" at cost to the licensing agency.
But in these economic conditions and times, as well “home rule” laws in the current Illinois State Constitution, which The Honorable Richard Daily helped write, to the City it means "act like the mob, take what you can get by hook or by crook."
Thus by manipulating medallion "auction" prices (setting fake prices), “auctioning or more accurately-“selling” instead of ISSUING the licenses, the City scores huge bucks and the "buyers" score more power and more cash generators (cab drivers behind the wheels of their cabs).
The current scheme of things: Push the price high enough to get single-medallion holders to sell out, which then can be gobbled up by front-men for the big fleets and "outsider" fleet operators, with unknown and undisclosed financial backing, from who-knows-where, even Russian and Kuwaiti "banking interests" might be involved.
It is not a new story: Little guy gets squeezed out, big guys take over, with the help of the government.
The idea of "trimming influence" really means making the lawful authorities RESPONSIBLE and ACCOUNTABLE for their decisions and actions.
But then you have to institute laws that govern the government and reduce or diminish or mitigate their current level of power and influence.
I would venture to speculate that the last thing our City government wants on its individual and collective back is more laws that protect the public from the government, in this case, cab drivers and medallion holders.
After readig your artical agree one hundred pecent but the government has the laws it needid, but it needs the will to infors it .
examble: one company it keeps over hundred cabs in it"garage to keep demand high in the street for cabs so they justify thir increases the weekly leass.
the city shuld make sure every cab fits to be on the street, be on the street at rush hour time.
