Stained glass mural of Philly taxi leaders
The Taxi Link airs Sat. 7-8 pm on WUST 1120 AM. Listen here:
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The National Taxi Workers Alliance, which became the 57th national union of the AFL-CIO less than two years ago, is looking to work with The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers to organize cabbies in the nation’s capital. “If it was done in a city like New York, if it was done in a city like Philadelphia, it can damn sure done in Washington, D.C.,” Philly taxi leader and NTWA vice president Ron Blount told The Taxi Link.
Meanwhile, this week the D.C. Taxicab Commission approved a credit card mandate as part of the Modern Taximeter System (MTS). D.C. taxi chair Ron Linton claimed that drivers will see a 2-4% increase in earnings as a result of MTS. From the dais, Stanley Tapscott, the longtime driver and Taxicab Commission member, asked how Linton arrived at this conclusion, but the chairman dismissed the question and moved straight to a vote. “I think these figures are just being picked out of the air,” Tapscott, who cast the sole vote in opposition to MTS, told The Taxi Link directly following the hearing.
In order to offset MTS’s cost, the Commission is implementing a $0.25 surcharge on each ride, as well as a $0.25 increase to the base fair, which would raise it to $3.25. Linton’s now-approved plan also calls for the return of the very extra passenger fee he took away, although now drivers would receive $1 for all the additional passengers instead of $1 for each extra passenger.
Philly taxi leader Ron Blount
Elsewhere, around 300 drivers gathered near Philadelphia’s historic 30th Street Station on Friday to call on the city to take steps to improve driver safety, as well as to establish a workers’ compensation fund for cabbies. The protest was held in response to Wednesday’s killing of 33-year-old driver Hafiz Sarafaqaz.
Lastly, The Taxi Link spoke with Jon Liss, co-founder and former director of Tenants and Workers United, a grassroots organization that works with cabbies in Alexandria and Arlington. “It became pretty clear pretty soon that the drivers were having a problem because they were attached to a monopoly like property,” said Liss. When just two companies dominated Alexandria’s taxi industry it allowed their owners to treat “drivers like they saw fit. They charged pretty much as much as they could get away with. There was no democratic rights.”
The Taxi Link is sponsored by The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers and airs Saturday 7-8 p.m. on WUST 1120 AM. The show is hosted by TheFightBack’s Pete Tucker and D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission member and ANC 1B chairman Tony Norman.