Taxi Drivers Call for Protests Ahead of Council Vote

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Hundreds of DC taxi drivers flooded the street across from the Wilson Building yesterday – and say they’ll be back again today – in anticipation of today’s scheduled vote on the “Taxicab Service Improvement Act of 2012.” “This bill in its current form is going to make us 21st century sharecroppers,” said Haimanot Bizuayehu, a board member of The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers, an organization which represents three thousand drivers. “If this bill passes as it is, it is going to put local taxicab companies out of business.” Drivers are concerned with a number of provisions in the “Taxicab Service Improvement Act of 2012,” including the increased power it gives to the D.C. Taxicab Commission and a mandate that all drivers install a new meter. Though city officials promised that the new meters would come at no cost to drivers, at Thursday’s press conference taxi chair Ron Linton said drivers may have to pay from $300 to $500 each for the installation. “Every driver should be there at 9 o’clock [Monday and Tuesday],” Bizuayehu said in a message to his fellow drivers. “Please, listen to me my friends, take two or three hours of your time and be there so that we can have our business for years to come.” - report adapted from Pete Tucker’s report in The Fight Back; photo by Julia Kann