UTW Appeals Decision To Issue 69 More Medallions
United Taxicab Workers has appealed a November decision of the Taxi Commission approving the issuance of 69 new medallions for hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles. UTW believes the approval was not supported by the evidence and the additional cabs would have a severe impact on driver income as the country’s economy moves toward a recession.
The decision came on top of the approval earlier last year of 50 new medallions, 25 for hybrid/alternative fuel vehicles and 25 for ramp taxis. Those medallions were issued after Yellow Cab driver Peter Witt’s appeal to the Board of Appeals was turned down. Besides UTW, Witt and Barry Taranto of S.F. Taxi have individually appealed the commission’s latest decision.

Major Changes at Commission
The Taxi Commission may be in its waning months as plans to merge it into the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) move forward, but changes are taking place nonetheless.
Commissioners Malcolm Heinicke and Bruce Oka have resigned from the commission and have been appointed to the MTA board. Mayor Gavin Newsom’s third choice for the board, Jerry Lee, is also familiar with the taxi industry, having chaired Mayor Art Agnos’s Taxi Task Force in 1989-90.
Heinicke was replaced by...
click here to read this article

Commission Orders Regents to Provide Workers’ Comp Coverage for All Cabs
Acting on a recommendation of a hearing officer, the Taxi Commission has given Regents Cab 90 days to obtain workers’ compensation insurance coverage for all its cabs. The decision makes it clear that other companies without workers’ comp coverage will have to come into compliance as well.
Regents was charged with failing to display a workers’ comp certificate at its place of business over a four-year period. The hearing officer, Henry Epstein, found that failure was, in essence, a failure to provide workers’ comp coverage.
Before the commission’s decision, Regents had obtained a workers’ comp policy for three cabs under its direct management. But Regents does not manage most of the cabs using its color scheme. Regents contended that it should not be responsible for providing workers’ comp for those cabs, but the commission decided otherwise.
Bay Cab has also been cited for failure to provide workers’ comp. A hearing officer’s decision in the Bay Cab proceeding is expected to reach the Taxi Commission shortly.

Is It the Beginning of the End
for Illegal Limos?
Sgt. Ron Reynolds of the Taxi Detail met recently with the managers of 15-20 of the largest hotels in town. The meeting was called as a result of an altercation over illegal limos at the Hilton. An officer who was being paid as a private cop by the hotel said a cab driver’s vehicle struck him and knocked him to the ground.
Sgt. Reynolds says he told the managers at the meeting, “‘If you don’t take this problem seriously, someday you will have a cab driver drive their cab right through your window, into your lobby.’ You could have heard a pin drop after I said that. I told them that if that happened, and the media got ahold of (the story), I’m going to say you had been warned.”
click here to read this article

Commission Discusses Safety
of Taxicabs, Drivers and Passengers
Taxi safety was the main topic at the Taxi Commission’s Dec. 12 meeting. A provision of the Police Code first proposed by United Taxicab Workers requires the commission to hold a hearing on safety at least once each year.
The hearing encompassed vehicle and road safety as well as crime prevention and detection. A number of suggestions were aired on how to make drivers, passengers and taxis safer.
click here to read this article

Court Rules Oakland Friendly Cab Drivers Are Employees
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a decision of the National Labor Relations Board declaring drivers for Oakland’s Friendly Cab and six other companies under the same ownership to be company employees. Employee status gives the drivers the right to have union representation and collective bargaining over the terms and conditions of their employment.
The drivers are members of the East Bay Taxi Drivers Association, and are represented by Teamsters Union Local 70. They have been fighting for years for the right to organize and bargain collectively. ...
click here to read this article

What the Friendly Cab Decision
Means for San Francisco Drivers
The Court of Appeals’ decision that drivers for Friendly Cab and other East Bay companies are employees does not necessarily imply that a court would reach the same conclusion about San Francisco drivers. Some of the factors that led to the decision in the Friendly Cab case — such as a prohibition on the use of cell phones — are not generally part of San Francisco cab company practices.
But other forms of control not practiced in the East Bay companies are present here...
click here to read this article

A New Ally for Cab Drivers:
Instituto Laboral de la Raza
By Ruach Graffis
The first back wage claim Sarah Shaker filed was for herself and other former employees of a bakery that had just been sold. The new owner closed it down without paying the workers any wages. That was in 1992. It took almost one year to settle the claim; in...
click here to read this article

Healthy San Francisco Plan
Opens Enrollment to All Residents
Healthy San Francisco, the city’s new universal health care plan, has opened its enrollment to all city residents after a federal appeals court put on hold a lower court judge’s decision that the plan violated federal law.
The court will consider the challenge to the law brought by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association later this year. But it ruled that the city had a strong chance of prevailing in the lawsuit and allowed the plan to go forward until the case is finally decided. click here to read this article

Letter to Editor on 311 Calls
Dear Sirs:
On page 3 of your Fall 2007 newsletter was an article (author unknown) titled, "Let's 311 them to Death." The article encourages drivers to call 311 every time that they see a limo violation. The article concluded with, "Let's flood the city with these calls. And then maybe, finally, we'll see the kind of action that's needed.
It's spelled E-N-F-O-R-C-E-M-E-M-E-N-T."
click here to read this letter

Drivers-of-Year Honored at Awards Ceremonies
Twenty-two taxi drivers have been honored as 2007 “Drivers of the Year” in ceremonies conducted by the Taxi Commission and Paratransit Coordinating Council.
click here to read this article