Interview by Chris Brooks

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance knows how to throw a punch.

On August 14, the scrappy but militant twenty-one-thousand-member union representing taxi and for-hire vehicle drivers in New York City won a landmark legislative victory establishing the country’s first cap on ride-sharing company vehicles and essentially forcing them to pay their drivers a minimum wage.

This fight pitted the Taxi Workers Alliance against corporate giants Uber and Lyft, which together employ more lobbyists than Amazon, Walmart, and Microsoft combined.

Uber alone spent $1 million between January and June of this year trying to put the brakes on the Taxi Workers Alliance’s efforts.

There is little wonder why. New York City is Uber’s largest US market, and the number of Uber and Lyft vehicles on the streets has exploded in recent years, from twenty-five thousand in 2015 to eighty thousand in 2018.

Since neither Uber nor Lyft considers their drivers to be employees — instead classifying them as “independent contractors” — both companies have avoided paying Social Security and payroll taxes while stripping their drivers of minimum wage and overtime protections as well as the right to organize a union and collectively bargain a contract. A city-commissioned study found that 85 percent of New York app-based drivers are earning below the minimum wage.

The companies have also made life miserable for many taxi drivers. As the number of Uber and Lyft vehicles has risen, the value of taxi medallions has plummeted. Once a prized asset for aspiring working-class families, medallions that once sold for $1 million are today selling for $200,000.

Driven to despair by unregulated corporate growth, six New York City drivers have taken their lives in recent months: Abdul Saleh, Yu Mein Kenny Chow, Nicano Ochisor, Danilo Corporan Castillo, Afredo Perez, and Douglas Schifter.

I spoke with New York Taxi Workers Alliance executive director Bhairavi Desai directly following the city council vote to discuss their victory and what this new legislation means for drivers.