Threaten strike if they have to add GPS
The City of New York Taxi and Limousine Commission has announced that all of its 13,000 city taxicabs must have GPS equipment installed in cabs by October 1st in order to pass city inspection, as well as touch screen monitors to allow passengers to pay by credit card and to provide access to multimedia news stories and city information.
This has outraged the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, an advocacy organization that represents approximately 8,400 of the Big Apple’s cabbies. The Alliance has threatened to go on strike in September if the City Commission does not rescind its GPS requirement.
The cabbies’ organization claims that the GPS requirement will invade the cab drivers’ right to privacy, since all cabs with GPS will be trackable by satellite.