Two Strikes Are More Than Enough

I took a break from posting as I was in Los Angeles over the weekend visiting family. What was a beautiful weekend at first turned smoky as a dozen blazes started up in the hills around the city and in Malibu. The Kashan Castle that I drove by Saturday night was burned to the ground only a few hours later. As we were staying in West Hills, the family was worried about another fire coming close to the house as it had done only two years ago. The firefighters over there are fantastic as I remembered they were saving the house in 2005, but now they are stretched thin as the humidity in So Cal is in the single digits.

Needless to say, I was glad to come back to more humid air without massive smoke plumes here in NYC. However, we were greeted with the taxi strike. A few cabbies were screaming and yelling at those that decided to work today despite the second strike in a month's time. Even though they gave a few good reasons (pensions, etc) after a while, the real concern is still having to install GPS trackers in their cars.

Bhairavi Desai and his New York Taxi Workers Alliance is claiming some sort of victory this morning, but I managed to hail a cab near Penn Station in about two minutes by dodging the taxi stand line. As the AM NY reporter mentioned, there are tons of cabs operating this morning, so there really is nothing to fear if you need to hail a yellow cab.

I am sticking to my position as I have over the last couple of months. While Desai and others complain that GPS trackers are an invasion of privacy, the real issue is accountability. Plenty of businesses use certain methods to hold their employees accountable and if cabbies don't like it, they should find something else to do. There are plenty of drivers out there today that do not care whether or not they are being watched while on the clock. If the GPS units were being used when they are off-duty, that would be another matter.

Taxicab Strike Set For October 22nd

Strike No.2 for (some of) the cabbies of New York City. After the first strike last month and the failed attempt in the courts didn't work, the NY Taxi Workers Alliance voted unanimously (500 votes out of 13,000 drivers in the city) to stop their meters and sit the day out on the sides of the avenues, streets and highways. The difference this time is that there is more to the strike. Union workers want health care, union rights and a pension fund. Those are all admirable items that workers should have, but after the last couple months of PR battles, cabbies have been on the losing end and getting to the top of this hill is a longshot.

From AM New York:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city will probably institute a contingency plan again. Last time, passengers shared cabs for flat fares. He also reiterated Tuesday that drivers agreed to the technology years ago when fares were raised.

"I've never thought that strikes lead any place," Michael Bloomberg said.

Another work action would be no more effective in bargaining with the Taxi & Limousine Commission or city than the last one, said Edward Rogoff, a Baruch College management professor who's studied the taxi industry.

"If it doesn't have a significant chance of winning, which it doesn't, it doesn't help anyone," he said.

There are others that believe in the cause and that the Alliance "holds weight" but personally I fail to see it. Bloomberg is wrong to say that strikes aren't effective but in this particular case I agree. The additional requests by the cab drivers are valid but this whole brouhaha makes the new developments look like a PR stunt.