FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
New York Taxi Workers Alliance Statement on SCOTUS Janus Ruling
(New York, NY) The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, representing more than 21,000 professional drivers in NYC, including yellow taxi, green cab, livery, black car and app-dispatched drivers, released the following statement on today's ruling by SCOTUS in Janus v AFSCME:
The Supreme Court has once again shown that it is on the side of the rich and powerful rather than the workers on whose sweat this country runs. The working class and the poor build collective power through unions, all the more necessary to balance the scales at a time of unprecedented income inequality. Public sector unions have increasingly functioned as a line of defense for a labor movement under constant attack in the private sector, where many workers have been stripped of collective bargaining rights and blocked from the courts through forced arbitration.
We know all too well the consequences of these attacks on workers. Yellow taxi drivers lost recognized collective bargaining rights 30 years ago when the dispatch and commission system was replaced by street hails and vehicle leasing. And though today's for-hire drivers are under commission and dispatched just as yellow taxi drivers once were,
the drivers are misclassified as independent contractors and denied collective bargaining rights.
Stripped of these basic rights, drivers across all sectors are now in a daily struggle for survival as Wall Street billionaires lead us on a race to the bottom with no laws to stop them.
This ruling is unconscionable
but may it ring as a wake up call: collective bargaining gives workers rights to democratic representation and puts legal pressure on the bosses to negotiate fairly. But it's worker organizing that builds unions and our uncompromising militancy that builds power.
Corporations cheering from the sidelines while the highest court in the land gut
s unions may have forgotten that our nation's labor laws were created largely to quell worker unrest. If workers cannot turn to the law to protect us, we have no choice but to take to the streets.
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Founded in 1998, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) is the 21,000-member strong union of NYC taxicab drivers, representing yellow cab drivers, green car, and black car drivers, including drivers for Uber and Lyft. We fight for justice, rights, respect and dignity for the over 50,000 licensed men and women who often labor 12 hour shifts with little pay and few protections in the city's mobile sweatshop. Our members come from every community, garage, and neighborhood. To find out more visit NYTWA.org, follow us on twitter.com/nytwa, and like us on facebook.com/nytwa.
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