Portland’s answer to Union Cab – taxi reform
City of Portland plans to
overhaul taxi rules in
September after a study
found shocking labor
conditions for drivers
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
The City of Portland is working on a
solution to some appalling labor condi-
tions, but Portland cab drivers learned
July 25 that details are two months
away. A preliminary City of Portland
labor market study released in January
estimated that Portland’s 900 taxi driv-
ers commonly work 14 hour days, with
no benefits of any kind, for take-home
earnings averaging $6.22 an hour.
Those conditions are legal because taxi
drivers are classed as independent con-
tractors, not employees.
Portland Mayor Sam Adams or-
dered the study after hearing about taxi
driver conditions in a February 2011
meeting with Oregon AFL-CIO Presi-
dent Tom Chamberlain. But City offi-
cials haven’t yet determined what they
intend to do about those conditions.
The City’s study concedes that City
regulations contribute to the problem,
since they cap the number of taxi per-
mits at 382, but dole them out to five
companies, leaving drivers to compete
with each other to use the permits. Ra-
dio Cab, a driver-owned co-op, has 136
permits, and offers fairly equitable
terms to drivers. But its biggest com-
petitor, Broadway/Sassy’s, charges a
$580-a-week “kitty” to drivers of its
153 permitted taxis — ostensibly for
insurance, advertising, dispatch and
credit card processing. Assuming
Broadway pays what Radio pays to
provide those services, Broadway’s
kitty works out to a direct transfer of
$17,000 a year from its drivers to its
owners’ pockets.
The other three companies — Port-
land, Green, and New Rose City —
split the remaining 93 permits. Drivers
complain that those companies are too
small and undercapitalized to generate
much telephone dispatch business, so
their drivers mostly cruise the down-
town hotel and entertainment area or
wait up to two hours at the airport for
fares — while still paying the compa-
nies $425 to $520 a week.
Taxi companies make their money
by charging drivers to use the vehicle
permits, which they get from the City
for $180 a year. Drivers pay the kitty
whether they make money or not, and
their earnings are what’s left after the
kitty, fuel, and car payments are sub-
tracted. It’s effectively a sharecropper
system. Most drivers would work at
Radio if they could, but it has only so
CWA Local 7901 president Madelyn Elder and a group of taxi drivers are asking the City of Portland for permission
to operate a union cab company which would be run as a driver-owned co-op. But at the July 25 meeting of the Private
For-Hire Transportation Review Board, they learned a decision is at least two months away.
many permits.
But last year, a group of 50 drivers
joined Communications Workers of
America (CWA) Local 7901 and asked
the City for 50 permits to form a sec-
ond driver-owned company, known as
Union Cab.
Their request led the City’s Revenue
Bureau — which enforces the taxi reg-
ulations — to take a new look at how
permits are issued: Is there room in the
market for more taxi permits, and how
should permits be distributed to best
benefit drivers, the public, and the en-
vironment? Right now the City has no
official criteria to judge proposals like
Union Cab’s. But neither does it have a
compelling reason to continue the cur-
rent practice of issuing the same num-
ber of permits to the same companies
year after year, with few or no per-
formance standards.
Proposed changes to City taxi regu-
lations are first presented to an ap-
pointed Private For-Hire Transportation
Review Board, which meets every
other month. Taxi drivers thought re-
forms would be aired at the May meet-
ing, but it was postponed and then can-
celled. So the mood was impatient at
the Board’s July 25 meeting, with
scores of drivers filling all seats in a
downtown conference room.
“This panel is losing credibility
every time we show up and get post-
poned for another 60 days,” said
Broadway driver Brenda Hiatt, to the
applause of drivers. “Can you tell me
why this is taking so long?”
“We’re not delaying because we
want to delay,” replied Kathleen Butler,
Regulatory Division manager in the
Portland Revenue Bureau. Rather, But-
ler explained, city officials aim to make
a major improvement in Portland’s taxi
(Turn to Page 4)
(International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X)
Established in 1900 at Portland, Oregon
as a voice of the labor movement.
4275 NE Halsey St., P.O. Box 13150,
Portland, Ore. 97213
Telephone: (503) 288-3311
Editor: Michael Gutwig
Staff: Don McIntosh, Cheri Rice
Published on a semi-monthly basis on the first and third Fridays of
each month by the Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc., a non-
profit corporation owned by 20 unions and councils including the
Oregon AFL-CIO. Serving more than 120 union organizations in Ore-
gon and SW Washington. Subscriptions $13.75 per year for union
members.
Group rates available to trade union organizations.
PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID
AT PORTLAND, OREGON.
CHANGE OF ADDRESS NOTICE: Three weeks are required for a
change of address. When ordering a change, please give your old
and new addresses and the name and number of your local union.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS, P.O. BOX 13150,
PORTLAND, OR 97213-0150
PAGE 2
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
AUGUST 3, 2012