Drivers May Strike Over New Taxi ‘Upgrades'

By Special to the Sun | July 25, 2007

Taxi drivers will strike in September if the Taxi and Limousine Commission does not cancel its plans to add new technology in yellow cabs by January 2008, the Taxi Workers Alliance will announce today. The TLC will require taxicab owners to pay for the installation and purchase of new 24-hour tracking GPS and text messaging boxes, credit card readers, and back-seat television monitors. Installation begins October 1. The executive director of the Alliance, Bhairavi Desai, said the planned measures are outrageous and an invasion of the drivers' workspace.

"[Drivers] do not even have basic labor rights, and now the TLC wants to strip them of their civil rights," Ms. Desai said. "The right to work with privacy is the right to work with dignity."