Cabbies May Strike To Protest Mandatory GPS Systems

The streets and airports of New York City could be taxi-free for two days this fall, as more than 10,000 cab drivers are threatening to strike in protest of the Global Positioning System devices the city is requiring all cabs to install by the end of the year.

The drivers union that is planning to lead the strike on September 5 and 6, the Taxi Workers Alliance, is calling on all city cabbies to join in what would be the first taxi strike in almost a decade.

The city's Taxi & Limousine Commission has ordered all medallion owners to install GPS devices in their vehicles as part of a large package of technology upgrades, including credit and debit card payment devices, passenger television screens, and a text-messaging box that would alert drivers where and when they were needed. All 13,000 yellow cabs are required to install the technology package by January.

Drivers are protesting the new technology, which costs about $7,000 to install, on the grounds that the GPS devices that would track their meters constitute a violation of their privacy. About 1,200 drivers have already installed the devices, and many are reporting that they cause their meters to break down more often and cost them time on the job.

The GPS "is simply being used for tracking," the executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance, Bhairavi Desai, said yesterday at a press conference in front of Pennsylvania Station. "They're not navigational, cannot be used for dispatching, and serve no purpose to the driver or the public."

The strike is intended to show city officials that taxi drivers' rights are more valuable than the technology in the cars they drive, Ms. Desai said.

Taxi industry leaders said yesterday that while they "weren't in love" with the required technology upgrades, they had no intention of joining the strike.

"What's wrong with someone able to use a credit card? We're in the 21st century now," the managing director of the League of Mutual Taxi owners, Vincent Sapone, said. "They should let it come in, see how it works, and if it's a bomb, then take action."

Some cab drivers said they did not want to pay a 5% processing surcharge on every credit and debit card transaction, but studies have shown that only about 15% of customers would switch to plastic from cash, Mr. Sapone said.

"Riders have paid an additional $1 billion directly to drivers' pockets" and "were promised technology enhancements in return," the chairman of the Taxi & Limousine Commission, Matthew Daus, said in a statement, referring to a 26% fare hike instituted in 2004.

The last taxi driver strike in the city, which lasted 24 hours, was in 1998, when the Giuliani administration threatened to crack down on the taxi industry by instituting higher fines and a point system.