Efforts by one Montgomery County lawmaker to better regulate app-based car services such as Uber and Lyft shifted this week from those services to a new focus on regulations related to how traditional taxi companies in the county treat their drivers.
County Council member Roger Berliner says taxi companies in the county may be taking advantage of its workers, according to a memo sent to the county’s Department of Transportation.
“I confess that I simply do not know how to reconcile the heavy regulatory presence our county has assumed in the minute details of the operation of our taxi fleet and our totally hands-off approach to issues that are fundamental to drivers,” Berliner wrote in the memo. “While we have aggressively regulated the color of taxis, the county has turned a totally blind eye to the relationship between the fleets to whom we granted monopoly access and the drivers who work for them. Based on what I have heard and their public testimony, I have reluctantly concluded that our drivers, many of whom are African immigrants, are among the most disempowered workers in our county.”
Berliner attached a breakdown of the issues facing local taxi drivers, which focused primarily on the drivers who work for Barwood, the largest traditional taxi company operating in the county, that was written by Washington, D.C., lawyer Jonathan Newman. Newman represented taxi drivers in mediation with taxi companies in Rockville last fall.
The document lists, among other things, that Barwood charges more to lease its taxis than companies in cities where lease rates are capped such as New York City and Seattle. Barwood charges $643 per week compared to New York City, where drivers can be charged at most $630 to lease a taxi for a week during the daytime (nighttime rentals are capped at $737 per week in New York), while Seattle caps lease rates at $475 per week.
Berliner wrote that he’s interested in capping the lease rate that taxi companies can charge drivers working in the county. The legal firm representing the drivers suggested a rate of $480 per week in the mediation.
Taxi companies in the county also charge fees to process credit card transactions that range from 5 percent to 7.9 percent, according to the mediation document, with Barwood charging the highest rate. Other jurisdictions such as Alexandria, Virginia cap the credit card fee at 5 percent, while New York City folds the cost of processing credit cards into the lease rates.
Berliner inquired in his memo about whether cabbies could be allowed to use their own credit card machines, or if a county cap on credit card fees would be feasible.
The mediation document also states Barwood drivers with their own personal vehicle licenses are required to contract with the taxi company for five years and pay a penalty if the contract is terminated early. Berliner asked if the Department of Transportation believes drivers should have the right to move to different companies and whether there should be “clear and uniform contract requirements” for taxi companies in his memo.
Barwood President Lee Barnes did not immediately respond Thursday afternoon to a request for comment about the issues that Berliner raised.
Since October, the council has been debating ways to either better regulate app-based services such as Uber or how to deregulate local cab companies to allow them to better compete with the app-based businesses.
At a council committee hearing in October, Barnes said his company faced unfair competition from the likes of Uber and Lyft because of county regulations that control the fares taxi companies charge, force them to have their vehicles inspected twice a year and require extensive background checks on their drivers. Uber and Lyft aren’t held to the same standards, according to the taxi company owners who testified at the hearing.
However, cabbies said at a public hearing in December that the bills introduced by the council—which would mostly deregulate aspects of the business while creating new requirements for app-based services—didn’t address their needs. Drivers said their hourly wages often amount to less than the minimum wage and that they’re working under difficult conditions, according to an account of the hearing in the Montgomery Gazette.
The council’s Transportation Committee, which Berliner chairs, is scheduled to discuss the issue and the proposed taxi legislation during its Feb. 27 work session.
