For Immediate Release: December 15, 2011

For More Information, Call:  Bhairavi Desai, NYTWA Executive Director, 212-627-5248

NYTWA Calls on TLC to Act Immediately

Today's decision by the New York State Court of Appeals is devastating.  Annulling the TLC regulation which prevented garages from passing along the sales tax as a separate and additional cost to drivers will basically mean that taxi drivers will now pay $4.77 more per shift, above leases that are already devastatingly high for drivers.  The highest court in the State of New York has shown themselves to be unsympathetic and cruel to the needs of over 40,000 driver families.

Under leasing, drivers pay up front $105 to $129 per shift.  Plus, we pay for fuel and other lesser shift expenses.  Even when gas hit over $4, not one fleet owner - majority bought their medallions decades ago - took off even $5 from the lease.  Drivers have no guaranteed income.  If the car breaks down or you're injured mid-shift of fall ill, the lease is already paid.  Fleets are guaranteed their profits.  They bear none of the risks of the street and pass along the cost of business down to drivers through exorbitant leases.  On the other hand, even with the amount of wealth they amass from drivers' labor, fleets don't have to pay one dime toward our incomes or well being.  There are no paychecks, employer tax contributions, health care, disability insurance or retirement pension.  We fend for ourselves daily.

Meanwhile, fleets have seen the value of their medallions go from $30,000 in 1970 to $1 million.  In these same four decades, drivers have suffered devastating losses while wealthy and politically influential fleet owners have made out like bandits.  The same fleets have also been overcharging drivers for years on the lease cap by charging regular weekly driver by each day separately, instead of the TLC's weekly cap.  It's been a difference of over $200 per week.  Now, they'll charge $33.39 more per week, a tune of $1,736 for the year.  Imagine being told by the state's highest court that your boss can cut your paycheck by almost $2,000 a year.  Petitioner MTBOT claims the judgment to be a victory for the "taxi industry" and loss to Mayor Bloomberg.  We beg to differ.  The victory is solely for them and their wealthy corporate friends.  The loss is to thousands of hard-working taxi drivers who fleets seek to keep under their financial control.

In a shameless act of corporate bias, the board opined:  

"And the Commission does not explain why, if it believed adding sales tax on top of the Standard Lease Caps to be unlawful under the old regulations, it permitted taxi owners to do so openly for a decade."

So if the city turns a blind eye to a policy harmful to workers and another administration rights the wrong, do the highest jurors of our state really believe that's reason to strike down the pro-worker regulation?  Where do drivers find justice if not in our legal system?  Why are our livelihoods second-class to the wealth of millionaire fleet owners?

We call upon the TLC to enact rulemaking as the appeal decision itself suggests:  

"On the other hand, if the Commission chose to reduce its Standard Lease Caps in order to offset the burden of sales tax on drivers, that would present no obvious Tax Law problem."

The daily livelihood of thousands of taxi drivers and our families are at stake.  We can't afford a downward slide when we're already at the bottom.

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