“Track Your Every Move” Just Doesn’t Scare Us Like It Once Did

In an era where people are eager to find new ways to compromise their privacy, it’s difficult to see how striking over ostensible civil liberties concerns will appeal to the masses of people who only care about getting across town:

New York cabbies are threatening to go on strike for two days next month — an action that could wreak havoc across the city.

The union representing Yellow Cab drivers said yesterday cabbies should strike for 48 hours to protest Taxi and Limousine Commission orders that they put Global Positioning System devices in their cars.

Cabbies claim the devices rob them of privacy by letting the city track their movements, and cost them money.

“This is an issue that is affecting every single taxi driver on the street,” said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of strike organizers the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. “I have never seen drivers this angry before.”

The union yesterday told drivers to stop work for 48 hours starting at 5 a.m. Sept. 5, unless an agreement is reached before then.

The last time city streets were emptied of yellow was in May 1998, when an estimated 11,500 of the 12,187 licensed cabbies stayed home. That strike, also led by Desai, aimed to take on then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to introduce more ironfisted rules for licensing cabbies.

The city’s Office of Emergency Management yesterday confirmed it was drawing up a contingency plan to ease chaos the strike could cause.

Remember, even the TWU couched their arguments in terms of “preserving health care for all working Americans” and look what that got them.

But at least one of the taxi driver unions gets that:

In competing Manhattan press conferences yesterday afternoon, rival advocacy groups said that (1) there could be a citywide taxi strike in September, and (2) there would not be a strike.

. . .

“We are ready to have a 48-hour strike on Sept. 5 and Sept. 6,” said Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, as she stood near a line of taxis outside Pennsylvania Station. “We are ready, willing and able to walk out.”

The Taxi Workers Alliance said in a press release that it wants to work out a resolution with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to avert a strike.

Two hours later, Fernando Mateo, a spokesman for the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, said no walkout was ahead.

Standing in front of the Taxi and Limousine Commission office on Rector Street in Lower Manhattan, he said: “Read my lips: There will be no strike.”

. . .

Ms. Desai said drivers had also complained that they were required to pay 5 percent of credit card fares to their garages as a service fee, and that meters sometimes malfunction when they are connected to global positioning systems.

Mr. Mateo praised the credit card systems, saying they would encourage more trips and higher tips. He dismissed concerns about the tracking systems.

“We don’t have to be radicals,” he said. “You want privacy, you don’t drive a cab.”

“Ready, Willing and Able” — nice way to co-opt a good cause! That’s Bush-like!

Earlier: Privacy Concerns — Quaint Like A Checker Cab.