🪧 Ahead Of March 1st Driver Pay Hearing, NYTWA Stages LaGuardia Strike
New York Taxi Workers Alliance members protested at LaGuardia Airport yesterday, ahead of this Wednesdays TLC driver pay hearing. NYTWA representing NYC Uber/Lyft drivers has some notable conflicts
New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) members protested at LaGuardia Airport yesterday
Protest was attended by politicians & comes ahead of this Wednesdays (March 1st) TLC Commission hearing on driver pay
NYTWA representing yellow taxi medallion drivers and NYC TLC drivers working for Uber/Lyft driver, has conflicts
Uber says LaGuardia trip volumes were not impacted by NYTWA action
The New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) held a protest, with hundreds of passionate NYC TLC drivers showing their support (Note: There are over 100,000 active NYC TLC drivers ). The protest, marketed as a strike at LaGuardia Airport, sought to draw attention to two main issues essentially.
Uber successfully suing to block a proposed TLC driver pay increase
Unfair app deactivations & lack of driver protections
Uber stated the action didn’t impact its business and had strong words for the NYTWA.
"As with the last couple of times, the taxi industry ‘protest’ has had no impact on Uber… The taxi association should focus on issues that actually resonate with drivers, like the TLC’s universally hated lockout rule, rather than PR stunts."
To read more about “lockouts”, click 👉 here 👈 for our recent article.
Nonpartisan Aspirations
Our publication seeks to provide viewpoints on issues, so that our audience may decide for themselves whether the points or perspectives mentioned resonate with them or do not.
Sometimes we just present data, which is meant to educate TLC drivers, fleets and others interested in learning more about the industry. We undoubtedly have our own biases, but we try to our best to be transparent.
With this same breath, we also try to present all sides (sometimes there are more than two) of an issue to help inform opinions. We’ve covered multiple NYTWA actions, strikes and protests. We think the organization has achieved a lot for NYC TLC drivers under the longtime leadership of labor activist Bhairavi Desai.
Furthermore, the NYTWA should be given a lot of credit for pushing hard, for years and against odds, to help achieve an unprecedented taxi medallion debt restructuring agreement.
Without their strong advocacy, a deal that has seen hundreds of millions of driver debt forgiven, would likely have not been realized. While we think the advocacy is genuine, it is not immune to “side taking” and gamesmanship.
We empathize and agree with many of the NYTWA’s points and perspectives. However, we think our readership needs to consider some points, often lost in bitter discourse or monologue.
TLC Drivers Aren’t & Don’t Want To Be Employees
We followed yesterday’s strike action and speeches closely. One speech that particularly stood out to us was by New York State Senator Jessica Ramos.
State Senator Ramos speaks with passion and makes some great points 👏. Drivers shouldn’t be subject to a “high tech sweatshop” or algorithm abuse, such as unfair deactivations 👏. Uber & Lyft probably can do a lot of things better 👏. HOWEVER, one part of the speech revealed some uncomfortable politics for those who paid close attention, at 1:33 Ramos states:
“Those are things a good boss does for their workers…that a good boss does for their drivers”
- New York State Senator Jessica Ramos
🤔 For anyone who has spent some time with the NYC TLC driver community, the vast majority of NYC TLC drivers WANT to work as independent contractors. That isn’t a controversial perspective.
Uber is not a “boss”, because if you define it as such, then its drivers are EMPLOYEES. With the passage of the TLC Driver Minimum Pay Rules, insurance and other healthcare benefits from the Black Car Fund (funded by individual trip surcharges), characterizing how Uber operates in NYC as being lawless and an overlord where drivers have no protections, is simply not accurate.
This part of Ramos speech seems to have some taxi medallion politics to it, where the medallion industry wants its drivers to be categorized as independent operators, but make it hard for Uber/Lyft by forcing them to classify commercially licensed, independently operating NYC TLC drivers as “employees”. A vast majority of NYC TLC drivers who work for Uber (or Lyft) want more benefits and protections, but definitely DO NOT want to be classified as EMPLOYEES.
Unfair Deactivations
Setting the “TLC drivers working for Uber/Lyft are employees” politics aside. Can more be done for TLC drivers? Of course. Should more be done? Yes.
The issue of unfair deactivations is something we feel strongly about and have written on before. Others also continue to take notice and it is reported that the NYTWA is helping draft legislation with NYC Council member Shekar Krishnan to address the issue.
“It was like a slap in the face and it was one of the most demoralizing moments of my life…To be deactivated by someone who’s pulling a string, hiding behind a laptop, I don’t know what I did, who accused me, whether it was a lie or truth”
- Karim, who appears to be a NYC TLC driver, is reported to have been driving with Uber since 2017, when his account was cancelled
NYTWA Conflict Of Interest
We think NYTWA’s genesis as a driver advocacy organization for the yellow taxi medallion industry can result in a conflict of the interest when advocating for TLC drivers operating in other parts of the industry.
While there are many instances where a win for the yellow taxi sector, is a win for all TLC drivers, sometimes “zero sum” politics (i.e., in order to win, someone must lose) come into play. For example, perhaps the NYTWA wants a congestion pricing exemption for JUST the taxi medallion sector, but not Uber & Lyft 🤔. Is that a crime? No. However, that is not representing the interest of non-medallion TLC drivers, which now outnumber taxi medallion drivers at least 5 to 1, if not more.
The NYTWA must be careful not to market specific yellow cab sector advocacy, as a win for all NYC TLC drivers, especially when it’s actually resulting in a bad outcome for other sectors. Be honest, be transparent is what we are saying. Celebrating shutting down a company’s and its independent TLC drivers ability to work in NYC, starts looking a bit too political and hostile if you are doing it all the time.
As we mentioned above, we think NYTWA has been among the most, if not the most, consequential TLC driver advocacy organizations in the City. It should be commended, it should be listened to. However, it is not immune to criticism or falling into politics and we want our readership to take note.
Ahead of a TLC Commission hearing this Wednesday, March 1st, it should be noted that Uber LEGALLY blocked the driver pay raise for TLC drivers operating on its platform, BUT is still subject to annual inflation-linked driver pay raises. Furthermore, the State Supreme Court Justice, who interestingly had experience as a NYC taxi driver, stated that while NYC Uber & Lyft drivers deserve a pay raise, TLC's pay raise methodology was flawed. Maybe Uber, annoyingly to some, had a valid point.
“It’s just not enough to say there’s inflation and 100 drivers said gas prices shot up”
- Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron
In addition, the yellow cab industry’s taximeter increase was not impacted by Uber’s legal action. Were yellow cab drivers, including NYTWA members, picking up passengers at LaGuardia during yesterday’s strike action? If the answer to that question is “Yes”, how should that be interpreted?
As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or by emailing us at info@automarketplace.com.
AutoMarketplace.com NYC covers the for-hire transportation industry and automotive news. Check out AutoMarketplace.com on YouTube ▶️
These advocacy group will never protest on congestion fee or March 1 meeting on engine flexibility. The real enemy that will kill this business is the government and not Uber/LYFT.
You did not mention the flexibility. I have not seen any advocacy groups mention this. My question is if any drivers advocacy groups collecting funds from the city council. If so it’s a fraud, because it’s design to attack companies and not the government.