The war on professional drivers

Slashed pay and worker exploitation have left the city’s 100,000 for-hire vehicle drivers and our families on the brink of poverty. Whether we’re behind the wheel of black cars, yellow taxis, green cabs, liveries, Ubers or Lyfts, New York’s professional drivers are in crisis.

And rather than answering the crisis, a new proposal by City Councilman Ruben Diaz Sr. (D-Bronx) would make the situation worse by forcing drivers to work for only one app, greatly reducing our freedom and economic leverage, while imposing new taxes on us, the people in this industry who can least afford them.

This has many losers and only two possible winners: corporate taxi medallion owners and Uber.

Our city and state leaders need to stop putting obstacles in the path of drivers like me and start helping us help ourselves.

Like 90% of the city’s Uber and Lyft drivers, I am an immigrant and I work 12 hours most days to build a better life for my family. When I started driving for apps like Uber and Lyft, we made decent money and it was a good way to support my family. But then all that changed. In the past four years, my earnings as a ride-hail driver have been slashed in half. Yet I am still stuck with the same car payment, while gas prices and cost of living continue to empty my pockets.

I invested my savings to work in this industry under promises that have since been broken again and again. And I am not alone.

What drivers like me really need are livable minimum pay rates that bring them up to where they were when we first signed on.

A pay raise will allow us to lower our daily hours worked, reducing the number of drivers on the road — which means less congestion and more work for us all.

At the same time, we should stop the endless increase in the number of new Uber drivers — because when thousands get added every month, it gets all that much harder for those of us who are already on the road to make a living.

Uber already has more than 60,000 drivers on the road in the five boroughs. The growth in drivers is outpacing the growth in trips.

Instead of protecting workers, the Diaz bill would make the situation worse.

By imposing a new pay-to-work tax of $2,000 a year on each driver, it would sock 65,000 New York families with new taxes of more than $130 million annually.

Already, the city’s app-based vehicles and black cars are singled out for an 8.875% sales tax (taxis are exempt), which totals more than $100 million a year.

Already, we’ve been singled out for the highest congestion fee — $2.75 per ride, while delivery vehicles, commercial trucks and private cars pay nothing.

Already, drivers are killing themselves out of economic desperation.

And by forcing us to choose only one company to work for, the Diaz bill would eviscerate our ability to get fares. Most drivers work for multiple services to reduce our time without riders and stay busy.

Limiting drivers to one company will mean longer wait times for riders and more unnecessary congestion, as the streets clog with riderless vehicles.

With the average app-based driver working 11.5-hour shifts already, longer shifts will make our streets less safe for everyone. It also takes away the rights of taxi, livery and traditional black-car drivers to work for apps between clients.

Ride-hail apps are famous for treating drivers as expendable. Notoriously, they slash our pay with no notice and kick us off their apps for petty reasons, like a rating of 4.4 instead of 4.5.

Preventing drivers from working for more than one company means that when an app cuts our pay or mistreats us, we will have no choice but to stick with it or be forced to pay another $2,000 to switch companies, with no guarantees that the new boss won’t do the same thing.

The biggest winner of all this would be Uber. By forcing drivers to choose only one app in an industry dominated by one company, this bill would solidify Uber’s hold on the market and create an effective monopoly in New York.

Diaz is selling his bill as a salve for yellow-taxi drivers, who are also feeling a lot of pain right now. It’s bogus.

If we were truly concerned about them, we would raise the rate for cabbies and all drivers. Limit the number of workers entering the industry, so there’s enough work for everyone and to reduce congestion. And eliminate fees for struggling drivers, instead of adding more.

This industry has been out of control for decades. Someone needs to take the wheel — someone other than an ill-informed councilman doing the bidding of the moneyed interests.