When Zohran Mamdani gave his victory speech on the night of his mayoral triumph, he spoke directly to taxi drivers.
“This election is about people like Richard, the taxi driver I went on a 15-day hunger strike with outside of City Hall, who still has to drive his cab seven days a week,” Mamdani said. “My brother, we are in City Hall now.”
The line drew sustained applause from the crowd, which included Richard Chow, the taxi driver, whose brother Kenny Chow died by suicide during the medallion debt crisis. Seven other immigrant taxi drivers stood just off the stage at the theater.
It wasn’t the first time the drivers had stood with the 34-year-old Democratic socialist. Exactly four years ago, outside City Hall, they first camped for 45 days, then went on a 15-day hunger strike to demand relief from predatory medallion loans that had driven eight drivers to suicide.
When drivers launched their hunger strike, the then New York State assembly member Mamdani joined them, moving his office to the protest site outside City Hall. “He was a huge support in our struggle. He showed up every day and he was even arrested for blocking traffic on Broadway for half an hour,” Chow said.
Chow told Documented on election night: “We fought alongside him and now finally someone who understands what we went through will be making decisions.”
Just a few weeks after the election, taxi drivers and their union leaders from the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), which represents 28,000 drivers, including those who work for Uber and Lyft, are outlining what they hope to achieve under the new Mamdani administration. His history of solidarity with taxi drivers is a reason why union leaders believe Mamdani’s time as mayor will be different.
“We never had a partner in City Hall,” said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the NYTWA.
The union’s first priority is finishing the debt relief work that began with the 2021 hunger strike. The strike was in response to crushing debts from medallion loans — loans drivers took out to buy the city-issued licenses required to operate a yellow cab — that had ballooned to as much as $1 million after medallion values crashed.
The 2021 protests led to a city program that restructured medallion loans for nearly 2,000 drivers. The city gave each driver a $30,000 grant and negotiated with lenders to reduce their loan balances to $170,000, payable over 25 years at a fixed interest rate. In total, the program has erased nearly $450 million in debt so far.
But around 200 drivers are still waiting for relief because their lenders refused to accept the city’s deal. These drivers remain stuck with debts they cannot repay and risk losing their medallions.
“The Eric Adams administration gave us no support in reaching out to the remaining lenders. Having a mayor who understands and has been deeply committed to the success of this program means we are hopeful we will be able to get the rest of the loans across the finish line,” Desai said.
Documented reached out to the Mamdani administration for comment on specific plans to address issues facing taxi drivers, but they could not be reached by press time.
Beyond focusing on the debt relief effort, drivers and union leaders want the new administration to address pay inequality for app-based drivers. They are pushing for Intro 276, a City Council bill that would prohibit Uber and Lyft from deactivating drivers without just cause. The bill would require companies to give drivers 14 days notice before deactivation and establish an independent appeals process not controlled by the companies.
A recent report by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund found that 70% of Uber drivers and 76% of Lyft drivers surveyed were deactivated without prior notice, and more than 90% remained locked out despite appeals. As many as 90% of the city’s taxi drivers are immigrants, the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission previously stated in 2020.
Also Read: New Report Reveals Uber and Lyft’s ‘Unfair’ Driver Deactivation Practices
“We need new politics that value the humanness of the drivers through a livable income, retirement plan, and regulated economics,” Desai said. “It’s only by organizing and defending our agenda that drivers can win. Mamdani can’t do this alone — we have to keep fighting alongside him.”
Erhan Tuncel, another immigrant taxi driver who has been working in the city for 27 years, also attended Mamdani’s victory party at the Brooklyn Paramount. For him, Mamdani’s win meant drivers finally had someone in power who knew their struggles firsthand.
“We showed up to his rallies, we were there when he canvassed with night shift workers and we’ve been doing all we can to help him in the elections,” Erhan said. “I’ve even been playing Zohran’s interviews on repeat in my cab. I could tell people liked it from the way they talked to me and the way they tipped me,” he added.
Other drivers also hoped that Mamdani’s election would help make the city more affordable for taxi drivers like them.
“We hope the wages can catch up to the rent and that we can keep up with the costs of gas and repairs to our cars without having to work seven days a week.” said Kuber Sancho Persad, another immigrant taxi driver.
你知道吗？非公民办理驾照时的这个错误可能会导致选民欺诈
Persad was among the drivers who attended Mamdani’s midnight press conference in Jackson Heights on Oct. 30, part of the candidate’s outreach to night shift workers in the campaign’s final days.
On that night, Mamdani had first walked the taxi line at LaGuardia Airport and visited Elmhurst Hospital to speak with nurses working overnight shifts. After sharing a late-night meal at Kabab King, a 24-hour restaurant popular among immigrant workers in Jackson Heights, Mamdani addressed reporters.
“I think of all these workers who, every single day they toil at the hours when so many of us get to rest,” Mamdani said. “When we arrive at LaGuardia on a red-eye, these are the New Yorkers who pick us up. When we carry a feverish child into the ER at three in the morning, these are the New Yorkers who heal them.”
