Join Us This Wednesday 12/19 to Demand: Exempt Yellows + Greens from Congestion Pricing!!

JOIN US for a DEMONSTRATION This WEDNESDAY, DEC 19 at 1:30 PM at the Governor’s Office: 633 Third Ave (between 40th & 41st)

OUR DEMAND: EXEMPT YELLOWS & GREENS FROM $2.50/$2.75 CONGESTION PRICING TAX!  

The congestion pricing fee will add $2.50 for every yellow taxi trip that begins, ends or touches 96th St and below. 

So if the trip is from Brooklyn to the Bronx and you pass through Manhattan the $2.50 will be added.  For green cabs, it will be $2.75. Apps meanwhile can charge just 75 cents if fares are available for group rides. 

More than 90 percent of yellow taxi trips will be effected at time of historically low earnings, and skyrocketing bankruptcies and evictions. Drivers will be working only for the state, not our families and ourselves. It will be impossible to get a raise on the meter.  

Governor Cuomo can fix this: Exempt yellow and green cabs the same way liveries were exempted in 2009 from the 50 cent MTA tax because it would have created a hardship for them.

Apply that principle today to struggling yellow and green cabs.  If yellow and green industries are crushed, Wall-Street-financed Apps like Uber and Lyft will have more power against App drivers. Our organizing for better working conditions will become much harder.  Already we have lost 8 of our brothers to suicide.

We have to stand together, as one for all, all for one.

Even the Taxi and Limousine Commission has said that this fee would have a devastating impact on yellow taxi drivers. 

Just like yellow taxi drivers and Uber drivers united to create a wage floor for app drivers and to put a cap on Uber, we need to unite together now to stop Uber from destroying the lives of more of our brothers. 

Now is the time to show our unity and our strength. 

ALL DRIVERS and FAMILIES and FRIENDS, MAKE SOME NOISE!!!!!

DEMONSTRATION OUTSIDE THE 
GOVERNOR'S OFFICE
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19th
1:30pm
Governor's Office: 633 Third Avenue

Today, Bloomberg News published an article on how congestion pricing could devastate the yellow cab sector.

Even congestion pricing supporters see through this attempt to help Uber monopolize Manhattan. And our Uber driver brothers know that yellow taxi drivers will be hurt the most:

"We can avoid Manhattan and still make money," said Saibou Sidibe, who was a cabbie for over a decade before switching to Uber several years ago. "For yellow taxi drivers, Manhattan is the only place."   

The article also highlighted our daily protest line outside the governor's office leading up to our rally on Wednesday:

Every day last week, a small group of taxi drivers stood in front of Governor Andrew Cuomo's office in Manhattan, holding signs that said things like "Congestion Pricing = My Bankruptcy," and urging passing drivers to attend a larger rally planned for Wednesday.  Many cabbies laid on their horns, presumably in support, as they drove by.

Our members braving the cold on the protest line to call on the Governor to exempt yellow and green cabs from congestion pricing fee!

Check out more photos from the protest line on our Facebook page here!