Come one, Come All
This is the second part of a series on taxi drivers in New York by columnist Adam Dunn.
They came from around the boroughs and the world,
grumbling in a rich throaty broth of Spanish, Urdu, Hindi, and English.They
carried laser-printed signs that read tlc=torturing
local cabbies. Or gps: genuine
persecution system. Or look kids,
it’s matthew daus [the chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, or
TLC], the lying king. They were
drivers and they were labor organizers. But they were all members of the New
York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), a de
facto union of yellow taxicab drivers over six thousand strong, and they
all had a message for the TLC, in front of which they gathered: fuel surcharge yes, GPS no!
With energy prices spiking all over the country,
businesses dependent upon gasoline have had to impose surcharges on their fares
to offset the rising expense of fuel. (This morning, New York Waterway became
the latest to join the surcharge ranks, raising prices on some of its routes
from $5.75 to $7.75.) The TLC, however, has so far refused to approve a gas
surcharge, for which it has been petitioned by both the NYTWA and the League of
Mutual Taxi Owners (LOMTO). Other cities around the country, including Chicago,
Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. have approved fuel surcharges for their taxi
fleets.
The surcharge requested by the NYTWA is very
specific. “If the price of gasoline is between two and three dollars, the
surcharge is fifty cents [per fare]”, said Alliance organizer Kevin
Fitzpatrick. “Between three and four dollars, it would be a dollar. Between
four and five dollars, it’s a dollar-fifty. We actually worked this out through
six dollars, [although] I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon,
[but] I would not be surprised if gasoline was three-fifty or four dollars a
gallon in another year or two.”
Fitzpatrick was speaking from the shady western end
of Rector Street, where number 40 marks the headquarters of the TLC. Dozens of
drivers rallied around the NYTWA’s director, Bhairavi Desai, who stood opposite
the TLC’s building speaking to a growing crowd of reporters (few TLC personnel
appeared for smokebreaks behind the police cordon). “GPS has the ability to
produce automatic tickets, because it can monitor the speed of a vehicle,
similar to the way EZPass has been used in New Jersey,” she said. “Also, they
[the TLC] are attaching the GPS to the trip sheet. So you’re supposed to report
if a passenger beats your fare [jumping out without paying]. You’re supposed to
report that you never collected that amount on the meter, and you’re supposed
to go to the police to file a report for theft of services. Now, they’re going
to be able to automatically track you. If you don’t report, this could result
in an automatic summons.
“Or, for example, a passenger gets out at 28th
and Madison, and says, ‘This driver was rude to me.’ The TLC will use GPS to
check all the medallions in that vicinity. If there’s 20-30 of them, will they
all get a summons to go to court? The TLC has already said it would use GPS
reports in court, and in investigations. They will also turn the information
over to other agencies if subpoenaed, such as the IRS or NYPD. Drivers are not
convicted criminals, yet they’re being treated that way by the TLC.”
The GPS (which stands for Global Positioning System,
a formerly military satellite tracking technology now widely used by the
public, especially in cars), would cost $3K to install, as well as a monthly
maintenance charge of $125-$175, all of which would be borne by the drivers.
The TLC maintains it would be used to send traffic alerts to drivers, as well
as providing a way to track property lost in taxicabs or if a cab is stolen.
The NYTWA has angrily opposed such claims as false, saying Lo-Jack technology
is already standard on taxicabs (in case one is stolen), all cabs are
radio-equipped (so drivers can monitor traffic conditions), and, most
importantly, the GPS applied to taxicabs will not provide onboard navigational
information.
Desai also pointed out that the vendors with whom
the TLC apparently has been contracting with for GPS equipment and installation
have not been disclosed to the industry or the public. “Which companies,” she
speculated, “and which politicians stand to benefit?”
Drivers on site grumpily agreed, citing failed past
additions to taxis such as the pre-recorded celebrity greetings, which proved
famously annoying to both passengers and drivers (although drivers shouldered
the cost of both installation and removal of this reviled feature). “We can’t
afford one more experiment,” said Desai of the TLC’s GPS campaign.
“They’re not going to come out and say, ‘We’re going
to use it to track how much you’re making, and track your whereabouts all day.’
They keep denying it, but they’ve found no justifiable reason for why GPS is
necessary. It seems to me that they feel more beholden to corporations that
they’re working a deal out with, rather than to the 40,000 workers who labor in
this industry.”