Complaining that soaring gasoline prices have made it barely possible for them to scrape by, 17 cabdrivers held a rally on Monday afternoon outside the Lower Manhattan headquarters of the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, demanding that the panel impose a fuel surcharge on fares.

Victor Salazar, an owner-driver, beat on a pot, saying, “If they can’t give us a fuel surcharge, at least give us food stamps.”
The chairman of the commission, Matthew W. Daus, who noted that fares had been increased twice since 2004, said in a statement, “We do not believe that circumstances warrant a surcharge or adjustment.” However, he added, “We will continue to monitor the situation closely.”

The taxi industry in New York City is stratified, with large and profitable fleets at the top of the pyramid, independent owner-operators in the middle and, at the bottom, a large work force — many of them nonunionized immigrants — who lease medallions from middlemen known as leasing agents or, in some cases, from fleets. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which organized the protest on Monday, mostly comprises members of the third group, some of whom own their vehicles and some of whom lease them.

“Why are taxi drivers treated as second-class citizens?” asked Bhairavi Desai, the chief organizer of the workers’ alliance, who presented commission officials with a petition requesting a temporary fuel surcharge. Several other cities have imposed such surcharges, she noted.

Bill Lindauer, a driver and a member of the alliance’s organizing committee, said the Bloomberg administration had disregarded the economic straits drivers faced with gas prices that now exceed $4 a gallon.

“This is how the mayor treats working people?” he asked, adding, “I believe the mayor is a bold, innovative and pragmatic man, but he has an Achilles’ heel; he doesn’t feel for other people.”

In May 2004, fares were increased by 26 percent, the first such increase in eight years. Three-quarters of that increase went directly to the drivers; the rest benefited medallion owners in the form of lease caps, the amount the owners are permitted to charge drivers leasing their medallions.

In November 2006, the commission doubled the fare passengers pay while waiting in traffic to $24 an hour from $12, and all of that increase went directly to drivers, said Allan J. Fromberg, a spokesman for the commission.

According to the commission, the average daily gross earnings for a driver who owns his or her own vehicle and leases a medallion were $290.75 in June, unchanged from June 2007. (Fleet drivers and lease drivers, who rent both the car and the medallion, make 20 cents an hour less on average, according to the commission.)

But because per-gallon gasoline prices increased to $4.45 from $3.44 over the same period, the actual earnings per hour for drivers fell, to $13.41 from $14.59 for drivers of a Ford Crown Victoria, and to $16.12 from $16.69 for drivers of the Ford Escape, which runs on a hybrid of gasoline and electricity and has a significantly better fuel economy rating.

Several drivers said they had to work longer hours to make ends meet.

Victor Salazar, an owner-operator who drives a 2007 Toyota Sienna, and who took part in the protest, said: “To fill up the gas tank, I spend almost $80 per shift. My shift now is about 14 hours. I have to work more hours to compensate. I work six shifts a week. Actually it’s more like six and a half, because on my day off, I have to go out.”

Factoring in vehicle maintenance, car insurance, health insurance, liability insurance, the mortgage on his medallion and even the expense of looking for a bathroom while on the road, Mr. Salazar said, “It’s terrible.” He added, “It’s just amazing that I end up paying this much, even without having any accidents.”

Loubert Alexander, another owner-operator, said, “Two years ago, a fill-up cost $40; now it’s double that.” With the hot summer weather, he noted, cabs are burning even more gasoline as they run air-conditioning. (Cabdrivers are required to turn on air-conditioning if the customer requests it.)

The New York drivers were joined by Ronald Blount, president of the Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania, based in Philadelphia. “If I have to pay an extra $30 to $40 a day at the pump, that’s my rent,” Mr. Blount, a lease driver for 25 years, said. “So we came up to show solidarity.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/nyregion/08surcharge.html?ref=nyregion

In a corner of Long Island City known for beat-up auto repair shops and street-side chicken vendors, the newly renovated building that is home to Queens Medallion Brokerage looms like a checkered-yellow palace.

At its simplest, it is a taxi garage where drivers come to pay their weekly medallion dues and rant about the afternoon’s snooty tourists. But step away from the teller’s line and cabbies enter — by garage standards, anyway — a luxury suite: plasma TVs hanging from the walls, private showers next to the mechanics’ floor and soon (the bosses promise), a trio of massage chairs for the lounge.

“You’ll never see anything like this,” said Tony Georgiton, a former cabdriver and vice president of the medallion company, as he led a tour of the building on a recent weekday. “Nowhere else.”

Mr. Georgiton and the company’s president, Basil Messados, were used to shabby, single-bathroom garages where grease lined the walls and drivers had to step over transmission parts just to talk to one another. Now, they have created a taxi driver’s paradise, a refuge totally unlike the grimy, disheveled hangouts popularized on screen.

On a shelf in Mr. Messados’s office, next to photos of his wife and father, sits a portrait of a huffing-and-puffing Robert De Niro from the classic movie “Taxi Driver.” Mr. Messados said that he understood the plight of the hack. In the 1980s, he drove a cab from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. for a weekly income of $152.

Since then, he has traded in his yellow Ford LTD for a white Mercedes roadster. But he has not forgotten the long and erratic hours, the constant compliance checks from the city, and the sometimes ill-mannered customers. (Don’t get him started on the customers.)

The 32,000-square-foot building in Queens, which opened in April, is intended to alleviate some of those pressures, he said, and add a bit of comfort to what can be a grueling way of life.

“A driver needs an island, an oasis, where he can get away and feel like a human,” Mr. Messados said, putting out a cigarette in an ashtray painted to look like an old-fashioned Checker cab. “I think it’s a big shock when you tell them they can take a shower.”

Mr. Georgiton, 50, and Mr. Messados, 41, both Greek immigrants, retain a youthful energy that fuels off-color jokes and threats to tear the replica Greek sword off the wall for a lunchtime duel. The two have been business partners for nearly two decades, having set up shop in 1991 with a nine-cab brokerage in Queens.

They currently lease medallions for about 400 cabs, with two or three drivers using each car. Each driver pays about $800 a week to use the medallion, and some pay more for insurance or to finance their cabs if they do not own them.

The garage operates in a 91-year-old former factory that was bought in March for $6.5 million. An additional $1.5 million was spent to turn it into a sparkling, mustard-colored headquarters. It was a decided upgrade from the company’s old building a few blocks away.

“Someone told me once that you die without pockets — you can’t take anything with you,” Mr. Georgiton said. “We cut down on our profits a little, but you feel good about yourself.”

Many drivers seem to feel pretty good about the new place, too — when they can make use of it. Queens Medallion has not yet secured permission from the city to run a taxi stand, so cabbies can usually enjoy five or 10 minutes in the lunchroom before parking tickets start to hit windshields in the no-parking zone outside.

Drivers stream in and out all day, staying long enough to grab a Coke from the vending machine or catch a few minutes of a soccer game broadcast in high definition. While the lunchroom is popular, the showers rarely flow.

Last week, drivers were in and out at lightning speed. Sheik Musa Samory dashed into the lunchroom and spread out his maroon prayer mat. Mr. Musa Samory, who used to pray in a cramped room in the old location, said that when he first saw the new facilities, “it was like we were on the moon.”

He said the renovations reflected the caring attitude of the owners, who are known to organize weekly soccer matches and chat amiably with drivers in the lounge. “This is the way a business place should be,” said Mr. Musa Samory, a native of Ghana and a cabdriver since 1979. “Not just for money, but concern for health and to help you be happy.”

But in a time of dreary economic forecasts, others are not so pleased. Chantal Goin questioned the need for fancy facilities when many taxi drivers are struggling to earn enough to pay for expensive gas.

“Why put a shower in?” Ms. Goin shouted on the way to her cab. “It doesn’t make a difference. All I do is come in here and pay and leave.”

Hamidou Barry, an immigrant from Mali, said he would have preferred that the money used for renovations go instead toward reducing fees for taxi drivers, like the charge drivers must pay to share a cab. Mr. Barry said he was considering leaving the brokerage because it was getting too expensive. “This place is good, but they’re doing something that’s not right,” he said. “Charge, charge, charge, charge, charge.”

Mr. Messados defended the costs, explaining that having multiple drivers share one cab required extra insurance fees.

And amid all the frills, there are those who miss the filth. “It’s very nice, said Rashad Javaid, 29, from Pakistan. “Almost too nice.”

Mementos of a not-so-luxurious past have not totally vanished. Wander past the TV screens, up the granite staircase, and through the stately bathroom doors. A sign above the shimmering new toilets gently reminds drivers: “Please Flush Toilet by Hand Only. Do Not Kick to Flush!!!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/nyregion/09taxi.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin