For Immediate Release: February 2, 2021:
The statement can be attributed to Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of NYTWA, a taxi and Uber drivers union with over 25,000 members:
"It feels like drivers have been forgotten and left second priority in so many aspects of the recovery. Today brings some light of hope into what's been a tunnel of darkness.
We are relieved to know Governor Cuomo has corrected the gross neglect where drivers - a majority low-wage, immigrant and people of color workforce - were treated like second-class citizens and ignored in the first rollout of the vaccines despite the inclusion of all other transportation workers.
Thank you to Senator Jessica Ramos and other Senators for the leadership in bringing visibility to drivers.
Drivers are on the frontline, high at risk working in small, closed spaces. We lost over 60 drivers to COVID, from members who were among the earliest to face exposure to those who contracted the virus immediately after going back to work. Having priority access to the vaccine will keep more drivers alive and healthy, no longer forcing them to choose between economic survival and survival from a pandemic, and give members of the public access to more transportation as more drivers will be able to return to steady work. Uber drivers alone are the biggest private sector workforce across the state. Giving priority to drivers and restaurant workers is also one step toward addressing the racial and class inequities in the vaccine distribution.
We call on our delivery brothers and sisters, and all retail workers, to be immediately added. We look forward to working with the Mayor's office and the Taxi and Limousine Commission to ensure the Governor's order is implemented and join the calls for the White House to hasten supplies of the vaccine. We also call on other states to follow suit - both to recognize the priority for drivers and other service workers and to make vaccines available regardless of immigration status."
NYTWA's original statement on January 11th when drivers were initially excluded:
The state’s failure to include professional drivers in this stage of the vaccine rollout is gross neglect and it's infuriating. While other frontline transportation workers are now rightly eligible for the vaccine, our state’s nearly 200,000 taxi and for-hire-vehicle drivers were shockingly excluded.
Drivers were among the earliest New Yorkers to contract COVID. We have lost so many. They're working in a six-foot-long enclosed space, often with nothing more than partitions they've paid for out of pocket to protect themselves and their passengers. Many drivers, a large low-wage workforce, have pre-existing conditions and compromised health from long grueling workdays. The frontline nature of their work puts them at even greater risk - facing passengers who won't mask up, handling luggage, spending 12 to 14 hour days out on the streets, including risks of exposure when they stop for restrooms and food.
How did the state manage to list out all other transportation workers, but forget yellow cab and Uber drivers? Is it because they're low-wage or mostly people of color or immigrants? Because it can't be that they're not at risk or essential or critical to the transportation network of the city and state. Thousands have been working since the quarantine and those numbers only grow.
Adding insult to injury, just this morning, the state's taxation department sent out reminders to the taxi and for-hire industry to pay the congestion surcharge due each month on trips that start, end or pass throguh 96th St. and below. There is never a shortage of ways for the state to find drivers and lean on this industry when in crisis. For rights and protections, they always leave us as an after thought or second-class citizens. (See attached for email)
We’re calling on the state to rectify this error immediately and extend the 1b phase of the vaccine rollout to include frontline taxi and for hire drivers.
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