New York Taxi Drivers Oppose Constant GPS Monitoring

by James Parks, Jul 26, 2007

Members of the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance (NYTWA) announced plans for a citywide strike by more than 13,000 taxi drivers to protest the city’s decision to put tracking devices and other technologies in all yellow cabs in the city.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the NYTWA, told a July 25 press conference:

If the City Council and mayor stay silent as drivers’ privacy and economics are trampled on, we will strike in September. The TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission) rules with impunity and treats drivers like second-class citizens.

She says the union will announce a strike date next month. Medallion yellow cabs serve more than 800,000 riders a day, including 14,000 trips from the city’s two airports. The NYTWA has 8,400 mostly immigrant members, who have been rounding up “strike pledge cards” from the union and union drivers. NYTWA says it expects to increase its membership to 10,000 by the end of August. 

The drivers are most outraged over TLC’s plan to put GPS tracking devices in the cabs and on the meters. Driver Lea Acey says:

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 TLC’s or the garage’s business where I am when I’m off-duty? It beeps all day long if I don’t log in, like an ankle bracelet they put on criminals.

The NYTWA is seeking investigation of the awarding of the contract for the GPS systems to a company headed by the CEO of the taxi garage association. Desai asks:

How can 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?

The drivers also are complaining about machines in the cabs that process credit card payments. Drivers from Philadelphia, who have experience with the credit card machines, say it takes three minutes to process the payment and they sometimes have to wait as long as two weeks to receive the payment. Drivers have to pay an additional $15 per week for the credit card machines, even though they lose 5 percent on each credit card payment.

Drivers, who start each day by paying $130 to lease the cab, cannot afford to lose 5 percent on a fare. Worse, taxi brokers are charging drivers more to install the equipment. Driver Mohammad Abdul says he’s paying $1,300 more this year to lease his cab than he did last year. “Everybody in the industry knows it’s because of the GPS,” he says. 

The New York City Central Labor Council, to which the NYTWA joined in February, is backing the drivers. The NYTWA was the first worker center to join a central labor council. Last year, the AFL-CIO Executive Council approved a plan that paved the way for central labor councils and state federations and worker centers to work together on issues ranging from workplace rights to immigration reform to health and safety and other job-related concerns.

Ed Ott, the New York City labor council’s executive director, called the new technology in the cabs

a backdoor form of surveillance and sends 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.

Founded in 1998, the Taxi Workers’ Alliance has chapters in 19 cities, including Los Angeles, Omaha, Neb., and San Antonio. But New York City is the main hub for taxi driver organizing. Desai describes what it’s like for taxi drivers who try to form a union:

This is a profession where you may not see another driver for days. You work alone. You have to pay $130 each day to lease your taxi and medallion. And you have to pay for fuel. So you start out each day $130–$160 in debt. You have to make that much just to break even.

If you take ill or get a bad fare, then you have to take the loss. You travel long distances and expose yourself to danger. Being able to organize under these conditions is testament to the courage of these workers.

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