TheFightBack

SBA taxi leaders study the major changes DCTC is proposing to push through Wed.

The Taxi Link airs on WUST 1120 AM. Listen to the Aug. 18 show here:

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“The regulators and the people that control this city, they have no respect for the taxicab drivers,” said Tony Norman, co-host of The Taxi Link. “They don’t see them as part of D.C. They think they’re foreigners, they’re not a part of this city, or even of this nation. They have a very condescending attitude and the commission promotes that, starting with the chairman.”

Wednesday, the D.C. Taxicab Commission (DCTC) is scheduled to hold a hearing on amendments to six chapters of the regulatory code that governs the taxicab industry, but the number of people testifying is restricted. A notice posted at the DCTC website states, “Public comments are expected to be limited to the first 24 people to register.”

DCTC chairman Ron Linton “has this ridiculous rule,” said Norman, who’s a D.C. advisory neighborhood commission member, as well as chair of the board of Pacifica Radio’s WPFW 89.3 FM. “When you look at the attitude of this chairman, how he treats taxicab drivers, the condescension at his hearings, they would run this man out on a rail if he came to the city council treating other residents and citizens like that.”

Recently, Linton prevented the only two driver-representatives on the DCTC from casting votes (in opposition to his), a move of questionable legality.  Last week on The Taxi Link, one of those commissioners, Stanley Tapscott, called the DCTC a “kangaroo court.”  Continue reading →

Listen to The Taxi Link, Aug. 11:

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“[I question] whether this is racial or not,” D.C. Taxicab Commission (DCTC) member Stanley Tapscott said after the commission’s meeting last week at which it approved increased fines for drivers and other changes to the regulatory code that governs the industry. “If it was a white industry would they be putting all these rules on us?”

Tapscott, a longtime driver and former member of the commission, was the sole vote against the changes to Chapter 8 of Title 31 which include steep fines for a variety of violations, including several $1,000 fines for misuses of the soon-to-be-installed taxi smart meters. The two commissioners who joined taxi chair Ron Linton in voting in favor of the amendments are both representatives of the hospitality industry – Elliot Ferguson, CEO of Destination DC, and Bart Lasner of Loews Hotels.  Continue reading →

A hack inspector pulling over a taxi in Adams Morgan last week.

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“They have waged a number of media campaigns against us,” D.C. cabbie Mechal Chame said of the local press corps. “We are not against the public interest.”

Chame appeared on WUST 1120 AM’s The Taxi Link, which is sponsored by The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers (SBA) and co-hosted byTheFightBack‘s Pete Tucker and D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission member Tony Norman, who’s chairman of the board for Pacifica Radio’s WPFW 89.3 FM.  Continue reading →

Listen to The Taxi Link:

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“Uber is the talk of the town these days,” taxi leader Haimanot Bizuayehu said of the luxury sedan service that’s in 14 cities and operates in D.C. largely without regulation. “We don’t fear competition. As a taxicab driver I just want to compete with these people. But we want the playing field to be level… [and] Uber just wants to get it both ways.”

Bizuayehu, who’s a board member of The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers (SBA), made his comments Saturday on The Taxi Link on WUST 1120 AM, which is sponsored by the SBA and co-hosted by TheFightBack‘s Pete Tucker and ANC commissioner Tony Norman, who’s chairman of the Local Station Board of Pacifica Radio’s WPFW 89.3 FM.  Continue reading →

Listen to The Taxi Link

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“If we don’t [organize], I think sooner or later they’re going to do exactly what they want to do, which is take over, and we’re not going to have our jobs,” Bereket (“B.K.”) Berhe, board member of The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers (SBA), said in response to big companies like Uber and Verifone moving into D.C.’s taxi business.

Berhe appeared Saturday on The Taxi Link on WUST 1120 AM, which is sponsored by the SBA and co-hosted by TheFightBack‘s Pete Tucker and ANC commissioner Tony Norman, who’s chairman of the Local Station Board of Pacifica Radio’s WPFW 89.3 FM.  Continue reading →

Ahead of the vote, The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers held back to back protests at Freedom Plaza.

Listen to the July 14 The Taxi Link on WUST 1120 AM. 

(Listen to Councilmember Mary Cheh discuss the VeriFone contract 30:21 – 33:24)

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Last week, the D.C. Council approved an overhaul the city’s taxicab industry. Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh’s bill, which passed 11-1, requires drivers to install new meters made by Verifone, a California-based company which the District is signing a 5-year, $35 million contract with.

While the meters will play ads in drivers’ privately owned cabs, drivers will see none of the ad revenue, which will instead be captured mostly by Verifone, with a much smaller portion going to the troubled D.C. Taxicab Commission.  Continue reading →

The Verifone equipment city officials plan to install in every D.C. taxi. Picture courtesy of dcist.com

Listen to The Taxi Link on WUST 1120 AM

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(A shorter version of this piece ran in Union City, the AFL-CIO’s regional newsletter; and it was also cited by Slate.)

Tuesday, the D.C. Council is scheduled to vote for a second and likely final time on legislation that will overhaul D.C.’s taxicab industry, potentially to the detriment of drivers, who continue to be an afterthought in an industry that can’t exist without them. Ahead of the vote, drivers are scheduled to hold protests Monday and Tuesday from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. at Freedom Plaza, directly across from the D.C. Council.

“This bill in its current form is going to make us 21st century sharecroppers,” said Haimanot Bizuayehu, a board member of The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers, an organization which represents three thousand drivers. “If this bill passes as it is, it is going to put local taxicab companies out of business,” Bizuayehu told TheFightBack‘s Pete Tucker and ANC Commissioner Tony Norman, co-hosts of The Small Business Association’s radio program, The Taxi Link, which airs Saturdays on WUST 1120 AM. Continue reading →