Previous | Next :: Scaaab!!!!!!!!!!!!! Taxi Strike : 7th Av Penn Station : NYC | September 6, 2007, 3:34 pm

Scaaaaab!!!!!!!!!!!!! the pickets were out in force to try and stop the taxi drivers not supporting the strike from continuing to work.

Todays taxi strike in NYC...... all felt very familiar to me....... being a veteran of covering many bitter labour disputes in the UK..... I felt personally nostalgic and very sympathetic with the strikers.

er.....let me qualify that........I would like to pay by credit card occasionally and I kind of think unions that strike against new technology like GPS could be on a losing wicket........... but personally I felt kind of sympathetic to people who feel they have not been treated properly and are having this stuff forced on them.

Talking with the strikers themselves I picked up more of their objections to the equipment being imposed. The drivers will have to buy it but it generates no revenue stream for them. There will be a TV screen playing ads to their passengers. Those ads..... the driver will be forced to listen to all day with no control over what it plays or its volume but he will receive absolutely no income from the irritating advertising playing. The GPS system will allow the ads to be specifically targeted to the area of the city that the cab is actually driving in, allow passengers to pay by credit card, as well as allow the taxi drivers to be monitored all day, but will not assist them to navigate.

The drivers have had success in the past in resisting advertising systems that drive them and their passengers mad ...... maybe you can remember those short-lived celebrity voices piped out of speakers as you tried to state your destination or tried to pay...... everyone hated that and it was eventually removed........... maybe the drivers union can be successful against this new system.

Those guys that continued to drive apparently had a bumper day because the Mayor allowed them to pick up multiple fares at one time....... apparently increasing their pay for the day by up to 4 fold.......... and the striking drivers were labeled "Slackers" in the headline of the NY Daily News front page....... all of this no doubt makes the union guys a combination of more annoyed, determined and bitter.