5 ms·

I can't feel too sympathetic for the owners--they've been riding high on the back of their drivers for years. The drivers, who in fact are their employees, get

I can't feel too sympathetic for the owners--they've been riding high on the back of their drivers for years. The drivers, who in fact are their employees, get no benefits of any kind due to a legal fiction that classifies them as independent contractors. If the drivers--who are actually operating the taxis--want to take calls from the street, from dispatch, from Uber, from Lyft, it should be up to them. After all, if a driver wants to simply park his leased taxi and not drive, he's free to do so--he's an independent contractor. The medallion owners got themselves into this mess by becoming vehicle lessors, not taxi operators. Once upon a time driving a cab was a good job with good benefits. Now it's not a job at all, which is why immigrants rush to drive.

taxicabjesus 9y ago
> due to a legal fiction that classifies them as independent contractors. The taxi industry pioneered the independent contractor model. They provide the car, I lease it and do whatever I want with it for the duration of my lease. The company has very little control over what their drivers do - they would offer bonuses on certain fares to try to get drivers to go get their contracted fares in outlying areas... Renting a car is much cheaper than leasing a taxi, so the only reasonable use for my leased taxi was to try to make some money with it. I met a few other taxi drivers who thought that ppl like me, who drove for the biggest taxi company in Phoenix, were getting screwed by Big Taxi. One of these drivers was a solo owner-operator. He did everything himself: regulatory compliance (meter certification and whatever else the department of weights and measures cares about), advertising, etc. The other guys drove for smaller companies because they didn't like Big Taxi's corporate culture. I thought the arrangement with Big Taxi was acceptable. The series of events which forced my retirement from taxi driving were about 2 years ago, and I haven't kept up with the industry news... One of the guys I used to drive with gave it up when the owner-operator he leased from three in the towel. He did two or three trips for 'duper, rapidly realized that was a waste of his friend's new Prius, and got a 7-day-a-week job at a golf course. Another guy just went back to taxi driving after a year and a half "working his ass off" for a funeral home that didn't actually appreciate his efforts. This one said the call volume is significantly down, but call quality is way up. He recently got to take a fellow from Phoenix to Tucson - the guy had to be in federal court by 9am... It was a good fare.

taxicabjesus 9y ago

> due to a legal fiction that classifies them as independent contractors. The taxi industry pioneered the independent contractor model. They provide the car, I lease it and do whatever I want with it for the duration of my lease. The company has very little control over what their drivers do - they would offer bonuses on certain fares to try to get drivers to go get their contracted fares in outlying areas... Renting a car is much cheaper than leasing a taxi, so the only reasonable use for my leased taxi was to try to make some money with it. I met a few other taxi drivers who thought that ppl like me, who drove for the biggest taxi company in Phoenix, were getting screwed by Big Taxi. One of these drivers was a solo owner-operator. He did everything himself: regulatory compliance (meter certification and whatever else the department of weights and measures cares about), advertising, etc. The other guys drove for smaller companies because they didn't like Big Taxi's corporate culture. I thought the arrangement with Big Taxi was acceptable. The series of events which forced my retirement from taxi driving were about 2 years ago, and I haven't kept up with the industry news... One of the guys I used to drive with gave it up when the owner-operator he leased from three in the towel. He did two or three trips for 'duper, rapidly realized that was a waste of his friend's new Prius, and got a 7-day-a-week job at a golf course. Another guy just went back to taxi driving after a year and a half "working his ass off" for a funeral home that didn't actually appreciate his efforts. This one said the call volume is significantly down, but call quality is way up. He recently got to take a fellow from Phoenix to Tucson - the guy had to be in federal court by 9am... It was a good fare.