Today, I’m going to head down to a protest at noon by striking taxi drivers in New York City. You may remember that the drivers, who belong to the  Taxi Workers Alliance, struck for 48 hours right after Labor Day. In today’s NY Daily News, the Alliance executive director, Bhairavi Desai, explains the main reasons for the strike (and she even gets a semi-supportive News editorial, not so much for the strike but that the drivers have a point to make):

Thousands of taxi drivers are on strike today – the second time in six weeks we have taken this dramatic step. And you’ve probably read news reports that this is all about the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s attempts to install new Global Positioning System screens in cabs.

But the GPS screens are just one part of a much broader economic struggle. For years, taxi drivers have been finding themselves at the end of an ever-shorter stick – and nobody is hearing, much less answering, their concerns.

Let’s start with the much-ballyhooed screens. With all of the TLC’s boasting, you would think the new technology is the best thing since sliced bread. But behind the hype is a crude system that does little but return loud TV ads to the backseat, except now with the "innovation" of an off switch. Riders rejected similar technology five years ago.

Thanks to the new screens, drivers will suffer almost constant noise, lost legroom and seat space, and will be forced to rest their backs against a heated partition. There is also a new text message box they will have to use while passing through toll booths and at red lights – all so that the TLC can, for example, have the driver ask you if you see a left-behind umbrella in the backseat.

Absurdly, the GPS units don’t even provide navigation for the drivers; they just track them to collect the number of hours they work and the bookings they accumulate.

This intrusive technology will cost cabbies thousands of dollars per year. Drivers will lose 5% on all credit card payments made through the new system – including on tolls and tips. There is no minimum; even on $7 fares, they take a hit. And there are bound to be other financial losses to drivers when the system goes on the fritz, as it often does, disabling the meter in the process.

    Like a lot of workers today, the drivers work without health care and have no pension–the way of the world, it seems. So, the taxi drivers are us. I’ll try to get an update in later.