April 28, 2026 • 42 mins
Need a ride? This week, Kal speaks with co-founder, president, and executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Bhairavi Desai, about the ongoing disruption of the taxi industry. Bhairavi has fought alongside more than 21,000 drivers to raise the base income, create a cap on the number of ride-sharing vehicles permitted to drive in New York City, and relieve drivers of hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. But in a new era of ride-sharing and driverless vehicles, what threats remain to cab drives all over?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, cal here, before we begin, just want to let
you know this episode contains references to suicide. All right,
it's a jump back to twenty eleven. Uber arrived in
New York City. New York City is the taxi capital
of America, and a lot of us I know, sort
of thought, oh, this Uber thing, does this mean taxi
(00:21):
drivers are screwed? And in many ways they were so.
Thirteen thousand yellow cab drivers had dominated the streets right
and they would eventually compete with eighty thousand ride share cars.
And those rideeshare drivers didn't have to spend hundreds of
thousands of dollars on medallion fees. They were undercutting the
(00:41):
industry's base fees itself, and they were taking the clients
from yellow cab drivers. The New York City taxi industry
is constantly being upended, but it has always found a
way to fight back.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I had said to the members, I said, Okay, well
this is it, this is the final stage. Well, we're
going to go out to City Hall. We're going to
do it twenty four to seven camp, and then when necessary,
we're going to have a hunger strike.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
At the center of each one of their fights is
the co founder, president and executive director of the New
York Taxi Workers Alliance Peta vid Desai. For more than
two decades, she's fought alongside twenty one thousand drivers. And
here's what she's done, raising the base income, creating a
cap on the number of ride sharing vehicles permitted to
(01:30):
drive in New York City, period and relieving drivers of
hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt related to loans
and the medallion which I mentioned earlier, and we'll get
into that. She continues to challenge anything that threatens the
livelihood of the people she represents, including the introduction of
driverless vehicles. Today, I'm speaking with Beta V about the
ongoing disruption of the taxi industry in New York and
(01:54):
why it keeps happening.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Here we Go Again again.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Hey, I'm Cal Penn and this is Here we Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Here we go?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Hey? How are you okay?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Great?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I hear you.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Good to see you, Nice to see you.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I'm Beta Vi Desai.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I'm the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I'd love to start with the twenty eleven ride share apps.
Can you ground me in that moment? Where were you,
where was the organization and what was going through your
team discussions when there was talk about rideeshair apps coming.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Twenty eleven was actually a very non assuming time period.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
We really didn't know what was about to hit us.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
And in those days, Uber was actually recruiting yellow cab
drivers to work in the city at the time, you know,
they were beginning to be big in California, and I
remember like the press clips and it was like, what, like,
they don't even have professional drivers. It's in a private
motorists in their personal car. There's no street hailing. You
(03:23):
got to use your phone. And it was a lot
of discussion like, oh.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That's never going to work in New York City.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And they were specifically recruiting yellow cab drivers.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
At that time, we were.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
In the middle of the huge fight to raise the
living standards for drivers, and so we had won a
livable wage campaign and we had gotten a regulation that
six cents from every fair would go toward a health
and benefit fund for the drivers, and so we won that.
(03:59):
In twenty twelve, the entire raise went to our driver
income except for the six cents which went toward driver benefits.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
So we thought we were.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
About to actually reach the high point of our movement.
And then three years later, twenty fourteen, is when all
the disruption really began.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And we couldn't have imagined that nightmare.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
What was the disruption in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, I mean within a short period of time, Uber
had recruited so many vehicles and so everybody was just
drowning on the streets, and many yellow cab drivers that
have been leasing from a garage, you know, started to
go and work for Uber. And part of the logic
was Uber was offering these bonuses, so like six thousand
(04:53):
dollars guaranteed if you don't make it from your trips,
like we'll make it up for you, and then sign
bonuses on top of that and a lot of promises,
and so many of our members started to work for Uber.
But by twenty fifteen there was so much oversaturation we
(05:17):
started to hold protests calling for a temporary one year
vehicle cap, so a cap on the number of new
Uber and Lyft vehicles. So we lost the fight on
the cap because on one weekend alone, Uber spent ten
million dollars in attack ads against Dublasio. At the time,
(05:39):
Dublasio was at the Vatican meeting the Pope, apparently not
reciting the correct prayers, you know, And so.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
We got sold out.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And the thing is, during that fight, cal I mean,
I've been organizing drivers since nineteen ninety six. By nineteen
ninety eight we formed the tax Workers Alliance. I had
a very good relationship with most of the media. Knew
all the reporters, certainly the transit reporters. I could not
(06:10):
get into any one's story. Every story was about how
great Uber was going to be. Even if I talked
to a reporter for an hour, I could not get
one sentence into a story.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
The editors would kill it.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And so after we lost this fight, I talked to
one of the reporters. I remember standing in my room
just crying and screaming and saying, how did you just
forget us? Like we are human beings that are going
to be affected by this, Like why don't we matter
to you? And I begged reporters, I said, go and
(06:49):
file a freedom of information request, and it did do that,
and foil request came back and it showed while that City.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Council hearing was going on that we thought we were winning.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Uber's lobbyists saw the news that Deblasio down the hall
was having the fight with Clomo, so they started emailing
Cuomo's people saying, yeah, this bill guy is a problem
for us too, and you know, they all kind of
work together, and that's how our bill got killed.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
How did they end up getting through to so many
journalists to not cover your point of view or the
driver's points of view?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
They were buying so much ad space. And one of
the ways I learned that is because all of a sudden,
all of these institutions that know, we are not for profit,
you know, we're you know, a small budget organization, grassroots.
I started getting emails would you be interested in advertising?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And then I started getting calls.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Uber's advertising, would you like to advertise?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So it sounds like Uber was spending a lot of
money outising on the platforms, on the papers themselves, who
then were skewing their coverage in favor of their advertiser.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Exactly. Yeah, I want to.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Make sure I don't sort of skip over this. You'd
mentioned when we first started talking, you know, the when
Uber came in, the things that they were doing in
terms of bonuses and letting people know that it would
be easier to work on Uber than it would by
leasing or whatever the arrangements were the cab drivers had
with the people who actually owned those cars. I don't
(08:31):
think a lot of people know that cab drivers don't
outright necessarily own not just their cars, but their medallions.
And can you walk us through just very quickly what
the life of a taxi driver was like around this time,
just so that we have the context of twenty eleven,
twenty thirteen onwards.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, I mean there were so there's like thirteen thousand,
five hundred plus medallions that are been issued by the
City of New York. And the medallion and the number
you see on top of the cab, it's literally it's
a legal permit that allows you to operate a vehicle
that's been painted yellow and meets the specifications to pick
(09:13):
up street hails and you have this exclusive right. About
three thousand of those medallions were owned and operated by
individual drivers we call them owner drivers, and so of
course they also owned their vehicle, and the medallion at
the time was valued I think around those days close
(09:34):
to eight hundred thousand hit a million. One point two
million was the peak at some point. It may have
been around that time as well.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Meaning to buy it from the city it costs eight
hundred to a million.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So the city would only city has auctions and order
for the City of New York to auction off medallions,
they have to get permission from the State of New
York because it's a budget item. And so time to
time the city has starkly has auctioned off new medallions.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And after nine to.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Eleven there are a lot of stories in the media
that the one thing you can bank on, the one
asset you can bank on, is the medallion, that it
was more bullish than New York real estate, and this city,
when they would auction them, would say to the drivers,
you know, this is like a more secure bet than
(10:23):
the stock market.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
And so the city had.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Recruited a predominantly immigrant workforce to purchase this asset, but
the vast majority of drivers were still lease drivers. And
there are two types of lease drivers. A garage lease
driver who can go in for the week or for
the day, either the day shift or the night shift.
And back then we had what we call double shifting,
(10:49):
and so five am to five pm day shift or
five pm to five am night shift.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
That way, each driver.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Got to have one rush hour, and there was a
cap on how much the garages could charge you for
the shift or for the week. We had won all
those protections through the years. Or you could be a
lease driver who leases the medallion but would have the
vehicle finance through an industry broker.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So I just want to make sure I understand that.
So either drivers would outright and that sounds like a
small minority of drivers, but outright by like an eight
hundred thousand dollars medallion, I assume, either on their own
or in a collective with other drivers.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Sometimes i'd be family members, you know, you get all
your savings. I mean people would sell properties back home
and literally go to every extended family member to put
you know, savings together. And then you go to a
broker we call medallion broker, who either would find you
(11:54):
the seller or if it was during the city auction
time period, and then the city would set what's called
the opening bid, and very famously, around like twenty fourteen,
the Deblasio administration set the opening bid at like eight
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Wow, And so you go
(12:14):
to a broker who would say, no, no, no, I know,
this guy's gonna bid nine hundred thousand. You got to
go at least nine oh one. It's literally an auction, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And then the other two one is the garage thing
that you mentioned. So the drivers themselves would have to
pay a certain fee for that twelve hour shift, and
then would they keep anything that they earned above that.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Right, so you start your day at a negative and
so for you know, for typical drivers shift, which is
still this case today. If you're a daily driver, you'd
assume like the first four or five hours of your
shift or are just paying off your lease and you
also are paying for gasoline. You have a lot of
shift expenses, right, like parking sometimes tolls that are not
(13:05):
paid for by the passenger.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
If you're driving empty.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
You know, most of this work is in Manhattan and
primarily you know, street hail work and primarily this central
business district. And if you have a long fare into
the Bronx, for example, are you're coming back empty, you're
dead heading back and you may end up having to
pay a toll to dead head back. All that comes
out of the driver's earnings. And then on each fair
(13:32):
there are a number of taxes.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Okay, so I understand that. And the bill that you
mentioned and sort of the money that Uber was spending
to have that defeated. Was that before you won an
income raise for taxi drivers? That was something happened in
twenty twelve, right.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yes, twenty twelve is when we won this raise and
we won a health and benefit fund, and we thought
we had reached the goalpost of our movement. What we
did not know is that the same officials that we
were negotiating with the following year left the administration, the
(14:13):
Bloomberg administration, Deblasio was coming in. They went to work
for Uber and Lyft.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
And the very next day, like the next day, and.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Really advised Uber on how to monopolize in this industry.
These were our regulators. They voted on a rais knowing
the drivers were earning below the poverty level, and then
they sold us out in a heartbeat. I mean, we
came out swinging, right. We weren't feeling sorry for ourselves.
(14:49):
We were disgusted by the political corruption, and we came
out swinging. But it was impossible to fight back. Against
that level of corporate Well, I mean, I don't say
this lightly and I hate to use this, you know,
as like a third world nationalist.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
I hate to use this term, but it felt like
a war zone.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
In twenty fifteen when we were first fighting for that cap,
it felt like a war zone. It was overwhelming. We
had no friends left. Nobody wanted to talk to us,
(15:33):
nobody wanted to support us. You know, we were at
such a loss. We were asking for something so reasonable
that would not have killed their business, and we were
just disappeared overnight. And because we lost that fight for
a temporary cap in twenty fifteen, two years later, the
(15:58):
Driver's suicide started.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Okay, can you walk me through what hey, what that
was like when Driver's Suicide started? But then also how
you ultimately came back swinging fighting against the corporate money.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
By twenty sixteen and seventeen, all of us on staff
were starting to get phone calls. Like I at three
four in the morning, I was getting phone calls from drivers.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
We're like my family, right.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Like these are the folks that raised me. I started
when I was twenty three, and I love them so much.
And people I knew for so long who were just like,
I'm driving around, I don't want to go home.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I can't face my wife and my children.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And I was, you know, connecting people to ers, and
we were just checking up on everybody. And I remember
at a public hearing in April of twenty seventeen, TLC
Taxi Limusine commissioned public hearing on driver incomes and primarily
looking at uber lyft drivers, and I testify.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
At the very end of the hearing, I.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Testified and I said, I'm really worried. I'm getting phone
calls from drivers who are feeling suicidal. And I've not
experienced this, even with all the exploitation that I'd seen,
and I'd seen so much through the years, right, you know,
drivers who were you know, assaulted. I don't know how
(17:24):
many times I've been to ers and just bedsites, and
you know, and the garage still calling and saying, well,
where's my lease money? Or charging a late fee because
you didn't return the car on time, and including after
nine to eleven when one of our members, who a
passenger the backseat, asked him are you Muslim? During Ramadan?
(17:44):
And then you know, slashed his neck. But I've never
had drivers just tell me I'm suicidal. And by November
of that year, twenty seventeen, I gotten a phone call
from a community radio station host who said, two of
my listeners, I just don't hear from them anymore. And
(18:06):
it turned out that they each took their life. And
then on February fifth, twenty eighteen, Douglas Shifter, who was
a veteran black car driver, parked his black car outside
the gates of City Hall and he took his own life.
(18:27):
And at that point we went out there and made
like a makeshift memorial, and then we had to go public.
We had a press conference at like a vigil. So
from November twenty seventeen to around November twenty eighteen, there
were nine drivers, nine of our brothers who succumbed to
(18:50):
their despair. And from February on until this summer, for
six months, we never left this read.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
We were on the streets and.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Our posters would say, do not despair or organize, we
have your back. We just wanted to get the message
out to the drivers that we loved each other and
we were going to lift each other up. And what
we would talk, of course, we would talk about what
the policy solutions were, and it was a real grassroots
(19:26):
moment because while we were doing that, the city council
legislators had the leadership and the vision to fight for
that cap again, and by August we were able to
win the cap and it was the first definitive victory
against uber globally.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And can you talk about how that jump felt, because
it's I mean, I'm getting chills hearing you talk about
the mental health component of this. That seems to have
happened quite quickly and in a relatively short amount of
time to go from that to a victory, especially at
(20:06):
a time where politicians weren't necessarily reaching out to you
about those solutions. How did that turn around happen and
how did you get the victory?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Well, what was incredible to see is that, you know,
the prior years, nobody was reaching out because they were
avoiding us. During that six month stretch, they were doing
the work while we were doing our work on the
streets and our organizing. They were doing the work to
(20:37):
put the bills together, and then came forward and was like,
look like, we got you, We hear you, we understand.
I mean, during those months, there was a time when
we were on the steps of City Hall and we
had four makeshift coffins in front of us, because by
that there were four suicides by then, and the family
(21:01):
members of some of the drivers were with us. And
at the end of that action, everyone was talking about
also Albany's talking about adding a new surcharge on the
meter to tax the fares. That's going to go back
to supporting mass transit, you know, take which we see
as directly taking income away from the drivers. And our
(21:24):
estimate is it would have taken ten thousand dollars for
that year away from the drivers on the same day
that we are on those steps mourning such a tragic loss. Right,
They're not soldiers in a battlefield, you know, this is
not you know, this is not a country under attack,
(21:48):
you know, by US weaponry. And here we were and
casualties of an economic war that we had lost up
to them, and our governor at the time, Andrew Cuomo,
announces that they're going to add an additional tax the
same day, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
And so I think that.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
The folks at the city level, and you know, the
elected officials at the city level, who also really resented
the money that Uber had swung around, you know, and
they saw us fighting back. And you know, I always
say to our members, like when workers lead, the world follows,
(22:31):
and when workers win, the world changes. And the drivers led,
they showed in that despair, they kept.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Showing up among the victories that I that I was
really moved. By twenty twenty one, there was relief for
cab drivers in the amount of hundreds of thousands of
dollars of debt that they were in after purchasing a
taxi medellion, which we've just talked about the numbers that
I have, and correct me if I'm wrong, You're obviously
the expert. The numbers that I have were at that time,
(23:01):
the average medallion debt was around six hundred thousand dollars,
and what you all won was the city promising to
drop it to a max of one seventy one hundred
and seventy thousand. So that's the difference of a driver
paying three grand a month versus paying eleven hundred dollars
a month. I remember this so vividly because I saw
(23:23):
you at this hunger strike protest outside of City Hall
because our mutual friends are had texted me and said, hey, brother,
I'm going on a hunger strike with the taxi workers.
Can you stop by for an evening? And I'd been
following this on social media. I remember texting there was
somebody in the then mayor Deblasio's office. It was de
(23:45):
Blasio right at the time. Yeah, in the Blasio's office,
And I said, Hey, I'm going down to meet these
folks and spend some time. Any chance you want to
send somebody from the mayor's office And the text I
got back was we're aware that they're there, nothing's going
to be done about this, and no, we're not sending somebody.
It's like, okay, great, thanks a lot so. But then
(24:05):
went out in Sausas are on. I was very moved
because of the men and women who were there literally
on a hunger strike, and because of the text I
got back from the Mayor's office. I just sort of thought, well,
I'm obviously honored to be here and just spend a
couple hours. But when I read that this was victorious,
I was thrilled. Obviously. Can you walk me through what
(24:28):
this It was a forty six day protest and a
pretty high profile hunger strike.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Right, yeah, yep, forty five days and then the last
fifteen days were the hunger strike. It was the culmination
of a multi year campaign. Prior to occupying City Hall,
we were, you know, shutting down bridges.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
There were days where we.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Was shut down the Brooklyn Bridge and then shut down
the fifty ninth Street Bridge. There were days where we
would shut down Midtown like sixth Avenue outside one lender's office,
and then we would drive to Connecticut, you know, to
protest another one. There was one day where we went
from like City Hall to Midtown to New Jersey to
(25:17):
Long Island and these guys were incredible. I mean, the
drivers were incredible. And every Friday we used to meet
on Zoom and doing it through COVID. We organized ourselves
on WhatsApp groups and we were a real family and
we were not you know, we were not going to
leave those streets.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Until we won.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Where did the idea for the hunger strike come from.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I knew it was going to be the last escalation
point for the campaign, and so what it happened was
prior to when we first started to occupy City Hall,
the Dublasio administration had announced their version of a solution,
which was percentage based, so depending on the amount of
(26:03):
debt on your loan, you know, let's say if like.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Twenty five percent would be written down.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Well, okay, I mean, you know, if you owe like
six hundred thousand dollars, that's actually not very much of
a reduction. It's not still not a livable amount. You know,
it's still going to be generational dot for you. And
so we immediately rejected it and we called it out.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
We said to the media, this is not a solution.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
And the day that they he announced it, we did
an immediate protest outside Gracie Mansion, right the mayor's home,
and we did like a march, and so his neighbors
were really upset about it. And then we shifted over
to City Hall. What I saw was that we were
(26:50):
nearing the point where the election was going to happen.
We were not going to get another shot at the budget.
So I had said to the members, I said, okay,
well this is it, you know, it's God, this the
final stage. So we're going to go out to City Hall.
We're going to do it twenty four to seven camp
and then when necessary, we're going to have a hunger strike.
(27:14):
And you know, took vote and you know, I proposed it.
We had long conversations and we all agreed and you
know this is hundreds of members in our meetings and
that's how it really started. And we like worked with
a voluntary organization of doctors and like one of one
(27:35):
of my fondest memories of Zorn will always be standing
on that line with him, like for all the hunger
strikers to be to be checked on by the doctor.
And the amazing thing we have no lobbyists, we don't
have a political director.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
This was the Drivers.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, this was the organizing of the Drivers, really raising
the consciousness of the political class to take responsibility and
show leadership.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
When do you remember where you were when the news
broke that this was a victory and what was your reaction.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
First, while the camp, and even before the camp was
going on, we'd been in negotiations with the largest lender
called marble Gate. And you know, credit to marble Gate.
They were at the table with us and they were
willing to negotiate a solution with us. And so by
the time City Hall came to the table as well,
(28:40):
I said, okay, you know we were bringing the lender in.
It's going to be a three party negotiation here. And
like two or three nights before we reached the deal.
I had organized a meeting like late night, ten o'clock
or something of members to say, okay, emergency meeting.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
And I mean the street was packed.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
We're still we're still in our campound, we're still on
a hunger strike. We're outside on the streets. And said, okay,
there's a there's a deal that's nearing. And you know
I needed their permission. Yeah. And so the day of
the deal, you know, I remember sitting and sitting at
that table, and I was very tired. It was my
fifteenth day of the hunger strike, and and I was
(29:22):
so worried. I mean Richard, my our brother, Richard Chow,
whom you know, our mayor.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Is close to.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I call Richard the moral leader of our movement. And
Richard's brother Kenny, was among the nine drivers we had lost.
And Richard was on his fifteenth day of his hunger strike.
And one of my colleagues was reminding me how one
of the the images of our camp that I think
(29:51):
will always stay with all of us is then on
all the cabs that would be parked, and on the
top of the cabs, the number of pill bottles of
all these drivers with different ailments right, including Richard who
at that point was in a wheelchair but refused to
stop his hunger strike. And we had a campaign comedian
on what's up? And I said to them, okay, I
(30:12):
said when I when I text you avocado, that means
we got a deal.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
And so it was.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
It was incredible and like just walking through the gates
of city Hall and seeing everybody and you know, and
I'm like, you know, Zorn was holding down the public
you know, kind of the public facing campaign. What I've
been inside and seeing all the drivers and people are
just crying and dancing and eating avocados.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
There was one other victorial to ask you about, because
it kind of goes back to the earlier question about
ride share versus sort of yellow cabs. There was another
sort of disruption and win in twenty twenty three around
wage theft recovery. Can you quickly walk us through what
that is and also talk a little bit about the
(31:18):
point at which your organization decided to also represent ridehair drivers.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, well, to get to that question first, I mean,
so by twenty fifteen, when we were out there protesting
calling for the one year Vehicle PAP, I was just
surrounded by members who were working for Uber and Lyft.
And by the way, when we lost that fight, it
was those members who came in and said, don't give up.
(31:44):
Our union is on the right side. Don't stop this fight.
Also during that time, members started to talk about the
fact that they saw that on these Uber trips where
the passengers were supposed to be assessed a sales tax
and a surcharge to pay for workers compensation for the drivers,
(32:05):
that Uber was charging the drivers and you know, so's Lyft. Now,
in the contracts between the drivers and both Uber and Lyft,
there's essentially binding arbitration, right so, meaning that in the
contract arbitration is written in as you know, as the
venue for any grievance. And in order for a driver
(32:29):
to not remain under that arbitration, they have to email
Uber when they sign or Lyft when they sign a
new contract to say accept all the terms except arbitration.
And the vast majority of drivers had not done that.
And so when we realized that this was wage theft,
we went to the Attorney General's office at the time, Schneidermann,
(32:54):
and we also went back to our governor, mister Cuomo.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
At the time. Nothing happened.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
They passed on it, and everybody knew we were limited
of what we could do in the courts because of
the binding arbitration. But at the end of twenty fifteen,
the Federal Court in California opened up a small window
and so we were able to get some of our
members to opt out of it, until in twenty sixteen
we filed a lawsuit. Meanwhile, we kept engaging the Attorney
(33:24):
General's office and the Labor Bureau. This is from twenty
fifteen right and then in twenty twenty three is when
the Attorney General, Letitia James, and the leadership of the
Labor Bureau announced that they had reached a settlement.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
With Uber and Lyft.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
And because we pretty much established the law on the
actual wage theft. The reason it took so long is
because the drivers could not access the courts because the
binding arbitration, except you know, the Attorney General is of
course not bound to that, and so it took.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Over eight years.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
We were able to reach three hundred and twenty million
dollar settlement of recovery with Uber and Lyft, the biggest
wage stuff recovery in the history of New York State,
which is bitter sweet wage stuff victories are bitter sweet
because you know, it's obviously the sweetness of the victory
(34:29):
that you get to recover and undo an injustice. But
it's like you can't you can't turn back the clock
on a hungry belly.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, true. Did the drivers access that money
or is it like directly or does it go to
a fund?
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
No, that money went to the drivers. Oh great, every penny.
And with Uber they were able to recover about one
hundred and ten percent of what was owed. With Lift
there were more, you know, some complexities, it was a
little bit less, but and then we worked with the
ags off is an up to now about ninety percent
of that money has been claimed by the drivers, which
(35:05):
is the higher straight also recovery.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, we're Uber and Lyft or were the ride share
platforms the first major disruption that you all had to
deal with and the work that you do, and when
you look at the future for things like driverless cars,
what are your plans for hopefully making sure that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Well, I would say I would say historically, maybe the
first disruption for drivers was the onset of the leasing system,
where they went from being commission employees where you split
the meter, and so if you had a bad day,
the boss had a bad day, and the companies paid
for gasoline and there was no lease to Then when
(35:49):
independent contractorship and leasing came in, you know, the radios
were taken out of the cars. You're dependent only on
street hails. There's no more guarantee income. There's only now
fixed expenses. And so that happened like through the seventies
and the eighties. After that disruption, I would say it
(36:11):
was Uber and Lyft and the real attempt to gigify
this industry and this workforce, work that had been a
pathway to a middle class life, right that we had
spent fifteen years in a movement establishing that, and then
these companies came in and you know, completely interrupted our
(36:33):
movement and disrupted the progress that we had made. The
disruption of today is certainly the thread of driverless vehicles,
and weaimo. I would say that the difference between when
we face down Uber and Lyft, we weren't ready. We
(36:54):
were not ready for the disruption. We were not ready
for the amount of corporate wealth and consolidated capital and
political capital that we were going to have to face
off against today. As you know, as WEIMO comes in,
WEIMO cannot use the drivers in the same way because
(37:17):
they're trying to ouse the drivers. And I think that
there is a sensitivity in the political class that remembers
the suicides and knows that we as a union are
an unrelenting force. And so I feel like, you know,
(37:38):
I mean, the fighter in me right, like the unionist
in me is like, yeah, like, come on, Weimo, like
let's have it out.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
You know, like you.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
You underestimate us at your own peril, like you're not
the first beast.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
We got a slagh here.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So what are you most excited about looking forward? And
also so can you can you talk a little bit
about I know, during Zoron's transition, you are on one
of the transition committees. Your life's work is protesting these
same buildings that you have the chance to help plan
for at least the next four years of our city.
(38:16):
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Well, yeah, I mean my role, I mean I was
on a temporary transition committee that I get to keep
my day job and as long as the drivers.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Will have me.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I'm really excited, not just in my capacity with the union.
I'm excited as like someone who grew up poor and
you know whose parents died poor. I'm really excited to
have a mayor like who loves my class, you know,
(38:51):
who loves my class as much as he hates war,
because that for me has been the guiding light of
of how I want to live my own life. And
I mean, we've suffered so much as a working class
under you know, under the neo cons who still just
(39:11):
can't quit it under you know, austerity budgets. And our
union has been involved in the campaign to call for
you know, the progressive taxation and to tax the rich
their fair share. And our tagline of our campaign is
tax the rich and not the poor, right, because we've
seen the impact of the the attacks on working people
(39:36):
and for us it's been oh, well, you're independent contractors,
you're not really workers, and those classifications don't really matter,
you know.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
To me, it's about which class you're in.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
So I think, I think to have that is a
different framework and it's it's it's already been illustrated by
you know, Mayor Mamdani created the office of a Deputy
Mayor of Economic Justice and so both I think a
number of individuals and the structural changes that he's made
(40:09):
the fact that on he's so fearless and so principled,
and you know, I said to you know, I said
to Zorn when you know, he come to our office
right right before the inauguration, and I said, you know,
first time I'm going to get to work with the
mayor who loves the drivers as much as I do.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
And there's just, you know, just beautiful feeling.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah. Well, I mean the I'm heavily biased because you know,
my feeling is about you and your organization for years.
But it's exciting that at a time where we have
a mayor like this who has, by the way, tons
of opposition from the mainstream of both Democrats and Republicans,
not just in the city but statewide, that people who
do the kind of work that you do for working
(40:58):
families are front and center. I think it'll, you know,
we're all hopeful that that'll continue to make a huge
difference because the work is just getting started now that
now that he's a mayor. So it's a nice problem
to have. I think, Bato, it's always great to see
you and to talk to you, and i'd like to
kind of nerd out over all of the work that
you do is very.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Special so thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Here we Go Again as a production of iHeart Podcasts
and Snaffu Media in association with New Metric Media. Our
executive producers are me Kalpen, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino,
Andy Kim, pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Megan
tan is our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our
producer and editor. Our consulting producer is Romin Borsolino. Tory
(41:48):
Smith is our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly,
logo by Matt Gosson, Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline
Johnson and Megan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Basner, Isaac Dunnaugh,
Adam Horne, Lane Kleine and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but
especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etor. Thanks for listening. Everybody,
(42:10):
tell your friends, write a review. All of this helps.
I appreciate you listening, and until we Go Again, I'm
kel pen
Hey, cal here, before we begin, just want to let
you know this episode contains references to suicide. All right,
it's a jump back to twenty eleven. Uber arrived in
New York City. New York City is the taxi capital
of America, and a lot of us I know, sort
of thought, oh, this Uber thing, does this mean taxi
(00:21):
drivers are screwed? And in many ways they were so.
Thirteen thousand yellow cab drivers had dominated the streets right
and they would eventually compete with eighty thousand ride share cars.
And those rideeshare drivers didn't have to spend hundreds of
thousands of dollars on medallion fees. They were undercutting the
(00:41):
industry's base fees itself, and they were taking the clients
from yellow cab drivers. The New York City taxi industry
is constantly being upended, but it has always found a
way to fight back.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I had said to the members, I said, Okay, well
this is it, this is the final stage. Well, we're
going to go out to City Hall. We're going to
do it twenty four to seven camp, and then when necessary,
we're going to have a hunger strike.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
At the center of each one of their fights is
the co founder, president and executive director of the New
York Taxi Workers Alliance Peta vid Desai. For more than
two decades, she's fought alongside twenty one thousand drivers. And
here's what she's done, raising the base income, creating a
cap on the number of ride sharing vehicles permitted to
(01:30):
drive in New York City, period and relieving drivers of
hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt related to loans
and the medallion which I mentioned earlier, and we'll get
into that. She continues to challenge anything that threatens the
livelihood of the people she represents, including the introduction of
driverless vehicles. Today, I'm speaking with Beta V about the
ongoing disruption of the taxi industry in New York and
(01:54):
why it keeps happening.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Here we Go Again again.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Hey, I'm Cal Penn and this is Here we Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Here we go?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Hey? How are you okay?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Great?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I hear you.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Good to see you, Nice to see you.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I'm Beta Vi Desai.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I'm the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I'd love to start with the twenty eleven ride share apps.
Can you ground me in that moment? Where were you,
where was the organization and what was going through your
team discussions when there was talk about rideeshair apps coming.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Twenty eleven was actually a very non assuming time period.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
We really didn't know what was about to hit us.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
And in those days, Uber was actually recruiting yellow cab
drivers to work in the city at the time, you know,
they were beginning to be big in California, and I
remember like the press clips and it was like, what, like,
they don't even have professional drivers. It's in a private
motorists in their personal car. There's no street hailing. You
(03:23):
got to use your phone. And it was a lot
of discussion like, oh.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That's never going to work in New York City.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And they were specifically recruiting yellow cab drivers.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
At that time, we were.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
In the middle of the huge fight to raise the
living standards for drivers, and so we had won a
livable wage campaign and we had gotten a regulation that
six cents from every fair would go toward a health
and benefit fund for the drivers, and so we won that.
(03:59):
In twenty twelve, the entire raise went to our driver
income except for the six cents which went toward driver benefits.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
So we thought we were.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
About to actually reach the high point of our movement.
And then three years later, twenty fourteen, is when all
the disruption really began.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And we couldn't have imagined that nightmare.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
What was the disruption in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, I mean within a short period of time, Uber
had recruited so many vehicles and so everybody was just
drowning on the streets, and many yellow cab drivers that
have been leasing from a garage, you know, started to
go and work for Uber. And part of the logic
was Uber was offering these bonuses, so like six thousand
(04:53):
dollars guaranteed if you don't make it from your trips,
like we'll make it up for you, and then sign
bonuses on top of that and a lot of promises,
and so many of our members started to work for Uber.
But by twenty fifteen there was so much oversaturation we
(05:17):
started to hold protests calling for a temporary one year
vehicle cap, so a cap on the number of new
Uber and Lyft vehicles. So we lost the fight on
the cap because on one weekend alone, Uber spent ten
million dollars in attack ads against Dublasio. At the time,
(05:39):
Dublasio was at the Vatican meeting the Pope, apparently not
reciting the correct prayers, you know, And so.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
We got sold out.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And the thing is, during that fight, cal I mean,
I've been organizing drivers since nineteen ninety six. By nineteen
ninety eight we formed the tax Workers Alliance. I had
a very good relationship with most of the media. Knew
all the reporters, certainly the transit reporters. I could not
(06:10):
get into any one's story. Every story was about how
great Uber was going to be. Even if I talked
to a reporter for an hour, I could not get
one sentence into a story.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
The editors would kill it.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And so after we lost this fight, I talked to
one of the reporters. I remember standing in my room
just crying and screaming and saying, how did you just
forget us? Like we are human beings that are going
to be affected by this, Like why don't we matter
to you? And I begged reporters, I said, go and
(06:49):
file a freedom of information request, and it did do that,
and foil request came back and it showed while that City.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Council hearing was going on that we thought we were winning.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Uber's lobbyists saw the news that Deblasio down the hall
was having the fight with Clomo, so they started emailing
Cuomo's people saying, yeah, this bill guy is a problem
for us too, and you know, they all kind of
work together, and that's how our bill got killed.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
How did they end up getting through to so many
journalists to not cover your point of view or the
driver's points of view?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
They were buying so much ad space. And one of
the ways I learned that is because all of a sudden,
all of these institutions that know, we are not for profit,
you know, we're you know, a small budget organization, grassroots.
I started getting emails would you be interested in advertising?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And then I started getting calls.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Uber's advertising, would you like to advertise?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So it sounds like Uber was spending a lot of
money outising on the platforms, on the papers themselves, who
then were skewing their coverage in favor of their advertiser.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Exactly. Yeah, I want to.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Make sure I don't sort of skip over this. You'd
mentioned when we first started talking, you know, the when
Uber came in, the things that they were doing in
terms of bonuses and letting people know that it would
be easier to work on Uber than it would by
leasing or whatever the arrangements were the cab drivers had
with the people who actually owned those cars. I don't
(08:31):
think a lot of people know that cab drivers don't
outright necessarily own not just their cars, but their medallions.
And can you walk us through just very quickly what
the life of a taxi driver was like around this time,
just so that we have the context of twenty eleven,
twenty thirteen onwards.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, I mean there were so there's like thirteen thousand,
five hundred plus medallions that are been issued by the
City of New York. And the medallion and the number
you see on top of the cab, it's literally it's
a legal permit that allows you to operate a vehicle
that's been painted yellow and meets the specifications to pick
(09:13):
up street hails and you have this exclusive right. About
three thousand of those medallions were owned and operated by
individual drivers we call them owner drivers, and so of
course they also owned their vehicle, and the medallion at
the time was valued I think around those days close
(09:34):
to eight hundred thousand hit a million. One point two
million was the peak at some point. It may have
been around that time as well.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Meaning to buy it from the city it costs eight
hundred to a million.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So the city would only city has auctions and order
for the City of New York to auction off medallions,
they have to get permission from the State of New
York because it's a budget item. And so time to
time the city has starkly has auctioned off new medallions.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And after nine to.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Eleven there are a lot of stories in the media
that the one thing you can bank on, the one
asset you can bank on, is the medallion, that it
was more bullish than New York real estate, and this city,
when they would auction them, would say to the drivers,
you know, this is like a more secure bet than
(10:23):
the stock market.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
And so the city had.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Recruited a predominantly immigrant workforce to purchase this asset, but
the vast majority of drivers were still lease drivers. And
there are two types of lease drivers. A garage lease
driver who can go in for the week or for
the day, either the day shift or the night shift.
And back then we had what we call double shifting,
(10:49):
and so five am to five pm day shift or
five pm to five am night shift.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
That way, each driver.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Got to have one rush hour, and there was a
cap on how much the garages could charge you for
the shift or for the week. We had won all
those protections through the years. Or you could be a
lease driver who leases the medallion but would have the
vehicle finance through an industry broker.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So I just want to make sure I understand that.
So either drivers would outright and that sounds like a
small minority of drivers, but outright by like an eight
hundred thousand dollars medallion, I assume, either on their own
or in a collective with other drivers.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Sometimes i'd be family members, you know, you get all
your savings. I mean people would sell properties back home
and literally go to every extended family member to put
you know, savings together. And then you go to a
broker we call medallion broker, who either would find you
(11:54):
the seller or if it was during the city auction
time period, and then the city would set what's called
the opening bid, and very famously, around like twenty fourteen,
the Deblasio administration set the opening bid at like eight
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Wow, And so you go
(12:14):
to a broker who would say, no, no, no, I know,
this guy's gonna bid nine hundred thousand. You got to
go at least nine oh one. It's literally an auction, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And then the other two one is the garage thing
that you mentioned. So the drivers themselves would have to
pay a certain fee for that twelve hour shift, and
then would they keep anything that they earned above that.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Right, so you start your day at a negative and
so for you know, for typical drivers shift, which is
still this case today. If you're a daily driver, you'd
assume like the first four or five hours of your
shift or are just paying off your lease and you
also are paying for gasoline. You have a lot of
shift expenses, right, like parking sometimes tolls that are not
(13:05):
paid for by the passenger.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
If you're driving empty.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
You know, most of this work is in Manhattan and
primarily you know, street hail work and primarily this central
business district. And if you have a long fare into
the Bronx, for example, are you're coming back empty, you're
dead heading back and you may end up having to
pay a toll to dead head back. All that comes
out of the driver's earnings. And then on each fair
(13:32):
there are a number of taxes.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Okay, so I understand that. And the bill that you
mentioned and sort of the money that Uber was spending
to have that defeated. Was that before you won an
income raise for taxi drivers? That was something happened in
twenty twelve, right.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yes, twenty twelve is when we won this raise and
we won a health and benefit fund, and we thought
we had reached the goalpost of our movement. What we
did not know is that the same officials that we
were negotiating with the following year left the administration, the
(14:13):
Bloomberg administration, Deblasio was coming in. They went to work
for Uber and Lyft.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
And the very next day, like the next day, and.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Really advised Uber on how to monopolize in this industry.
These were our regulators. They voted on a rais knowing
the drivers were earning below the poverty level, and then
they sold us out in a heartbeat. I mean, we
came out swinging, right. We weren't feeling sorry for ourselves.
(14:49):
We were disgusted by the political corruption, and we came
out swinging. But it was impossible to fight back. Against
that level of corporate Well, I mean, I don't say
this lightly and I hate to use this, you know,
as like a third world nationalist.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
I hate to use this term, but it felt like
a war zone.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
In twenty fifteen when we were first fighting for that cap,
it felt like a war zone. It was overwhelming. We
had no friends left. Nobody wanted to talk to us,
(15:33):
nobody wanted to support us. You know, we were at
such a loss. We were asking for something so reasonable
that would not have killed their business, and we were
just disappeared overnight. And because we lost that fight for
a temporary cap in twenty fifteen, two years later, the
(15:58):
Driver's suicide started.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Okay, can you walk me through what hey, what that
was like when Driver's Suicide started? But then also how
you ultimately came back swinging fighting against the corporate money.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
By twenty sixteen and seventeen, all of us on staff
were starting to get phone calls. Like I at three
four in the morning, I was getting phone calls from drivers.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
We're like my family, right.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Like these are the folks that raised me. I started
when I was twenty three, and I love them so much.
And people I knew for so long who were just like,
I'm driving around, I don't want to go home.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I can't face my wife and my children.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And I was, you know, connecting people to ers, and
we were just checking up on everybody. And I remember
at a public hearing in April of twenty seventeen, TLC
Taxi Limusine commissioned public hearing on driver incomes and primarily
looking at uber lyft drivers, and I testify.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
At the very end of the hearing, I.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Testified and I said, I'm really worried. I'm getting phone
calls from drivers who are feeling suicidal. And I've not
experienced this, even with all the exploitation that I'd seen,
and I'd seen so much through the years, right, you know,
drivers who were you know, assaulted. I don't know how
(17:24):
many times I've been to ers and just bedsites, and
you know, and the garage still calling and saying, well,
where's my lease money? Or charging a late fee because
you didn't return the car on time, and including after
nine to eleven when one of our members, who a
passenger the backseat, asked him are you Muslim? During Ramadan?
(17:44):
And then you know, slashed his neck. But I've never
had drivers just tell me I'm suicidal. And by November
of that year, twenty seventeen, I gotten a phone call
from a community radio station host who said, two of
my listeners, I just don't hear from them anymore. And
(18:06):
it turned out that they each took their life. And
then on February fifth, twenty eighteen, Douglas Shifter, who was
a veteran black car driver, parked his black car outside
the gates of City Hall and he took his own life.
(18:27):
And at that point we went out there and made
like a makeshift memorial, and then we had to go public.
We had a press conference at like a vigil. So
from November twenty seventeen to around November twenty eighteen, there
were nine drivers, nine of our brothers who succumbed to
(18:50):
their despair. And from February on until this summer, for
six months, we never left this read.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
We were on the streets and.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Our posters would say, do not despair or organize, we
have your back. We just wanted to get the message
out to the drivers that we loved each other and
we were going to lift each other up. And what
we would talk, of course, we would talk about what
the policy solutions were, and it was a real grassroots
(19:26):
moment because while we were doing that, the city council
legislators had the leadership and the vision to fight for
that cap again, and by August we were able to
win the cap and it was the first definitive victory
against uber globally.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And can you talk about how that jump felt, because
it's I mean, I'm getting chills hearing you talk about
the mental health component of this. That seems to have
happened quite quickly and in a relatively short amount of
time to go from that to a victory, especially at
(20:06):
a time where politicians weren't necessarily reaching out to you
about those solutions. How did that turn around happen and
how did you get the victory?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Well, what was incredible to see is that, you know,
the prior years, nobody was reaching out because they were
avoiding us. During that six month stretch, they were doing
the work while we were doing our work on the
streets and our organizing. They were doing the work to
(20:37):
put the bills together, and then came forward and was like,
look like, we got you, We hear you, we understand.
I mean, during those months, there was a time when
we were on the steps of City Hall and we
had four makeshift coffins in front of us, because by
that there were four suicides by then, and the family
(21:01):
members of some of the drivers were with us. And
at the end of that action, everyone was talking about
also Albany's talking about adding a new surcharge on the
meter to tax the fares. That's going to go back
to supporting mass transit, you know, take which we see
as directly taking income away from the drivers. And our
(21:24):
estimate is it would have taken ten thousand dollars for
that year away from the drivers on the same day
that we are on those steps mourning such a tragic loss. Right,
They're not soldiers in a battlefield, you know, this is
not you know, this is not a country under attack,
(21:48):
you know, by US weaponry. And here we were and
casualties of an economic war that we had lost up
to them, and our governor at the time, Andrew Cuomo,
announces that they're going to add an additional tax the
same day, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
And so I think that.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
The folks at the city level, and you know, the
elected officials at the city level, who also really resented
the money that Uber had swung around, you know, and
they saw us fighting back. And you know, I always
say to our members, like when workers lead, the world follows,
(22:31):
and when workers win, the world changes. And the drivers led,
they showed in that despair, they kept.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Showing up among the victories that I that I was
really moved. By twenty twenty one, there was relief for
cab drivers in the amount of hundreds of thousands of
dollars of debt that they were in after purchasing a
taxi medellion, which we've just talked about the numbers that
I have, and correct me if I'm wrong, You're obviously
the expert. The numbers that I have were at that time,
(23:01):
the average medallion debt was around six hundred thousand dollars,
and what you all won was the city promising to
drop it to a max of one seventy one hundred
and seventy thousand. So that's the difference of a driver
paying three grand a month versus paying eleven hundred dollars
a month. I remember this so vividly because I saw
(23:23):
you at this hunger strike protest outside of City Hall
because our mutual friends are had texted me and said, hey, brother,
I'm going on a hunger strike with the taxi workers.
Can you stop by for an evening? And I'd been
following this on social media. I remember texting there was
somebody in the then mayor Deblasio's office. It was de
(23:45):
Blasio right at the time. Yeah, in the Blasio's office,
And I said, Hey, I'm going down to meet these
folks and spend some time. Any chance you want to
send somebody from the mayor's office And the text I
got back was we're aware that they're there, nothing's going
to be done about this, and no, we're not sending somebody.
It's like, okay, great, thanks a lot so. But then
(24:05):
went out in Sausas are on. I was very moved
because of the men and women who were there literally
on a hunger strike, and because of the text I
got back from the Mayor's office. I just sort of thought, well,
I'm obviously honored to be here and just spend a
couple hours. But when I read that this was victorious,
I was thrilled. Obviously. Can you walk me through what
(24:28):
this It was a forty six day protest and a
pretty high profile hunger strike.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Right, yeah, yep, forty five days and then the last
fifteen days were the hunger strike. It was the culmination
of a multi year campaign. Prior to occupying City Hall,
we were, you know, shutting down bridges.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
There were days where we.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Was shut down the Brooklyn Bridge and then shut down
the fifty ninth Street Bridge. There were days where we
would shut down Midtown like sixth Avenue outside one lender's office,
and then we would drive to Connecticut, you know, to
protest another one. There was one day where we went
from like City Hall to Midtown to New Jersey to
(25:17):
Long Island and these guys were incredible. I mean, the
drivers were incredible. And every Friday we used to meet
on Zoom and doing it through COVID. We organized ourselves
on WhatsApp groups and we were a real family and
we were not you know, we were not going to
leave those streets.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Until we won.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Where did the idea for the hunger strike come from.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I knew it was going to be the last escalation
point for the campaign, and so what it happened was
prior to when we first started to occupy City Hall,
the Dublasio administration had announced their version of a solution,
which was percentage based, so depending on the amount of
(26:03):
debt on your loan, you know, let's say if like.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Twenty five percent would be written down.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Well, okay, I mean, you know, if you owe like
six hundred thousand dollars, that's actually not very much of
a reduction. It's not still not a livable amount. You know,
it's still going to be generational dot for you. And
so we immediately rejected it and we called it out.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
We said to the media, this is not a solution.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
And the day that they he announced it, we did
an immediate protest outside Gracie Mansion, right the mayor's home,
and we did like a march, and so his neighbors
were really upset about it. And then we shifted over
to City Hall. What I saw was that we were
(26:50):
nearing the point where the election was going to happen.
We were not going to get another shot at the budget.
So I had said to the members, I said, okay,
well this is it, you know, it's God, this the
final stage. So we're going to go out to City Hall.
We're going to do it twenty four to seven camp
and then when necessary, we're going to have a hunger strike.
(27:14):
And you know, took vote and you know, I proposed it.
We had long conversations and we all agreed and you
know this is hundreds of members in our meetings and
that's how it really started. And we like worked with
a voluntary organization of doctors and like one of one
(27:35):
of my fondest memories of Zorn will always be standing
on that line with him, like for all the hunger
strikers to be to be checked on by the doctor.
And the amazing thing we have no lobbyists, we don't
have a political director.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
This was the Drivers.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, this was the organizing of the Drivers, really raising
the consciousness of the political class to take responsibility and
show leadership.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
When do you remember where you were when the news
broke that this was a victory and what was your reaction.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
First, while the camp, and even before the camp was
going on, we'd been in negotiations with the largest lender
called marble Gate. And you know, credit to marble Gate.
They were at the table with us and they were
willing to negotiate a solution with us. And so by
the time City Hall came to the table as well,
(28:40):
I said, okay, you know we were bringing the lender in.
It's going to be a three party negotiation here. And
like two or three nights before we reached the deal.
I had organized a meeting like late night, ten o'clock
or something of members to say, okay, emergency meeting.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
And I mean the street was packed.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
We're still we're still in our campound, we're still on
a hunger strike. We're outside on the streets. And said, okay,
there's a there's a deal that's nearing. And you know
I needed their permission. Yeah. And so the day of
the deal, you know, I remember sitting and sitting at
that table, and I was very tired. It was my
fifteenth day of the hunger strike, and and I was
(29:22):
so worried. I mean Richard, my our brother, Richard Chow,
whom you know, our mayor.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Is close to.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I call Richard the moral leader of our movement. And
Richard's brother Kenny, was among the nine drivers we had lost.
And Richard was on his fifteenth day of his hunger strike.
And one of my colleagues was reminding me how one
of the the images of our camp that I think
(29:51):
will always stay with all of us is then on
all the cabs that would be parked, and on the
top of the cabs, the number of pill bottles of
all these drivers with different ailments right, including Richard who
at that point was in a wheelchair but refused to
stop his hunger strike. And we had a campaign comedian
on what's up? And I said to them, okay, I
(30:12):
said when I when I text you avocado, that means
we got a deal.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
And so it was.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
It was incredible and like just walking through the gates
of city Hall and seeing everybody and you know, and
I'm like, you know, Zorn was holding down the public
you know, kind of the public facing campaign. What I've
been inside and seeing all the drivers and people are
just crying and dancing and eating avocados.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
There was one other victorial to ask you about, because
it kind of goes back to the earlier question about
ride share versus sort of yellow cabs. There was another
sort of disruption and win in twenty twenty three around
wage theft recovery. Can you quickly walk us through what
that is and also talk a little bit about the
(31:18):
point at which your organization decided to also represent ridehair drivers.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, well, to get to that question first, I mean,
so by twenty fifteen, when we were out there protesting
calling for the one year Vehicle PAP, I was just
surrounded by members who were working for Uber and Lyft.
And by the way, when we lost that fight, it
was those members who came in and said, don't give up.
(31:44):
Our union is on the right side. Don't stop this fight.
Also during that time, members started to talk about the
fact that they saw that on these Uber trips where
the passengers were supposed to be assessed a sales tax
and a surcharge to pay for workers compensation for the drivers,
(32:05):
that Uber was charging the drivers and you know, so's Lyft. Now,
in the contracts between the drivers and both Uber and Lyft,
there's essentially binding arbitration, right so, meaning that in the
contract arbitration is written in as you know, as the
venue for any grievance. And in order for a driver
(32:29):
to not remain under that arbitration, they have to email
Uber when they sign or Lyft when they sign a
new contract to say accept all the terms except arbitration.
And the vast majority of drivers had not done that.
And so when we realized that this was wage theft,
we went to the Attorney General's office at the time, Schneidermann,
(32:54):
and we also went back to our governor, mister Cuomo.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
At the time. Nothing happened.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
They passed on it, and everybody knew we were limited
of what we could do in the courts because of
the binding arbitration. But at the end of twenty fifteen,
the Federal Court in California opened up a small window
and so we were able to get some of our
members to opt out of it, until in twenty sixteen
we filed a lawsuit. Meanwhile, we kept engaging the Attorney
(33:24):
General's office and the Labor Bureau. This is from twenty
fifteen right and then in twenty twenty three is when
the Attorney General, Letitia James, and the leadership of the
Labor Bureau announced that they had reached a settlement.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
With Uber and Lyft.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
And because we pretty much established the law on the
actual wage theft. The reason it took so long is
because the drivers could not access the courts because the
binding arbitration, except you know, the Attorney General is of
course not bound to that, and so it took.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Over eight years.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
We were able to reach three hundred and twenty million
dollar settlement of recovery with Uber and Lyft, the biggest
wage stuff recovery in the history of New York State,
which is bitter sweet wage stuff victories are bitter sweet
because you know, it's obviously the sweetness of the victory
(34:29):
that you get to recover and undo an injustice. But
it's like you can't you can't turn back the clock
on a hungry belly.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, true. Did the drivers access that money
or is it like directly or does it go to
a fund?
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
No, that money went to the drivers. Oh great, every penny.
And with Uber they were able to recover about one
hundred and ten percent of what was owed. With Lift
there were more, you know, some complexities, it was a
little bit less, but and then we worked with the
ags off is an up to now about ninety percent
of that money has been claimed by the drivers, which
(35:05):
is the higher straight also recovery.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, we're Uber and Lyft or were the ride share
platforms the first major disruption that you all had to
deal with and the work that you do, and when
you look at the future for things like driverless cars,
what are your plans for hopefully making sure that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Well, I would say I would say historically, maybe the
first disruption for drivers was the onset of the leasing system,
where they went from being commission employees where you split
the meter, and so if you had a bad day,
the boss had a bad day, and the companies paid
for gasoline and there was no lease to Then when
(35:49):
independent contractorship and leasing came in, you know, the radios
were taken out of the cars. You're dependent only on
street hails. There's no more guarantee income. There's only now
fixed expenses. And so that happened like through the seventies
and the eighties. After that disruption, I would say it
(36:11):
was Uber and Lyft and the real attempt to gigify
this industry and this workforce, work that had been a
pathway to a middle class life, right that we had
spent fifteen years in a movement establishing that, and then
these companies came in and you know, completely interrupted our
(36:33):
movement and disrupted the progress that we had made. The
disruption of today is certainly the thread of driverless vehicles,
and weaimo. I would say that the difference between when
we face down Uber and Lyft, we weren't ready. We
(36:54):
were not ready for the disruption. We were not ready
for the amount of corporate wealth and consolidated capital and
political capital that we were going to have to face
off against today. As you know, as WEIMO comes in,
WEIMO cannot use the drivers in the same way because
(37:17):
they're trying to ouse the drivers. And I think that
there is a sensitivity in the political class that remembers
the suicides and knows that we as a union are
an unrelenting force. And so I feel like, you know,
(37:38):
I mean, the fighter in me right, like the unionist
in me is like, yeah, like, come on, Weimo, like
let's have it out.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
You know, like you.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
You underestimate us at your own peril, like you're not
the first beast.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
We got a slagh here.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So what are you most excited about looking forward? And
also so can you can you talk a little bit
about I know, during Zoron's transition, you are on one
of the transition committees. Your life's work is protesting these
same buildings that you have the chance to help plan
for at least the next four years of our city.
(38:16):
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Well, yeah, I mean my role, I mean I was
on a temporary transition committee that I get to keep
my day job and as long as the drivers.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Will have me.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I'm really excited, not just in my capacity with the union.
I'm excited as like someone who grew up poor and
you know whose parents died poor. I'm really excited to
have a mayor like who loves my class, you know,
(38:51):
who loves my class as much as he hates war,
because that for me has been the guiding light of
of how I want to live my own life. And
I mean, we've suffered so much as a working class
under you know, under the neo cons who still just
(39:11):
can't quit it under you know, austerity budgets. And our
union has been involved in the campaign to call for
you know, the progressive taxation and to tax the rich
their fair share. And our tagline of our campaign is
tax the rich and not the poor, right, because we've
seen the impact of the the attacks on working people
(39:36):
and for us it's been oh, well, you're independent contractors,
you're not really workers, and those classifications don't really matter,
you know.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
To me, it's about which class you're in.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
So I think, I think to have that is a
different framework and it's it's it's already been illustrated by
you know, Mayor Mamdani created the office of a Deputy
Mayor of Economic Justice and so both I think a
number of individuals and the structural changes that he's made
(40:09):
the fact that on he's so fearless and so principled,
and you know, I said to you know, I said
to Zorn when you know, he come to our office
right right before the inauguration, and I said, you know,
first time I'm going to get to work with the
mayor who loves the drivers as much as I do.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
And there's just, you know, just beautiful feeling.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah. Well, I mean the I'm heavily biased because you know,
my feeling is about you and your organization for years.
But it's exciting that at a time where we have
a mayor like this who has, by the way, tons
of opposition from the mainstream of both Democrats and Republicans,
not just in the city but statewide, that people who
do the kind of work that you do for working
(40:58):
families are front and center. I think it'll, you know,
we're all hopeful that that'll continue to make a huge
difference because the work is just getting started now that
now that he's a mayor. So it's a nice problem
to have. I think, Bato, it's always great to see
you and to talk to you, and i'd like to
kind of nerd out over all of the work that
you do is very.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Special so thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Here we Go Again as a production of iHeart Podcasts
and Snaffu Media in association with New Metric Media. Our
executive producers are me Kalpen, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino,
Andy Kim, pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Megan
tan is our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our
producer and editor. Our consulting producer is Romin Borsolino. Tory
(41:48):
Smith is our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly,
logo by Matt Gosson, Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline
Johnson and Megan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Basner, Isaac Dunnaugh,
Adam Horne, Lane Kleine and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but
especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etor. Thanks for listening. Everybody,
(42:10):
tell your friends, write a review. All of this helps.
I appreciate you listening, and until we Go Again, I'm
kel pen
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