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Indian party songs blast through the speakers. After two weeks of hunger strike, there is a big party at New York City Hall. Overjoyed taxi drivers hug each other, others cry with happiness.
“I’m so relieved,” driver Augustine Tang (37) beamed to a reporter from The City News. “What people don’t realize is that we’ve been protesting this for years. We thought it would never be resolved.”
Tang, like thousands of other taxi drivers, is struggling with sky-high debts. They ran into problems after purchasing the permit that allows you to drive independently through New York in the well-known yellow taxis, called the ‘Taxicab Medaillion’. Only a limited number of these medals are issued, which means that they continuously increased in value. At the peak, even 1 million dollars.
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It therefore seemed like a golden investment. Drivers were willing to put in all their savings and borrow huge sums. But that was all before competing taxi companies like Uber and Lyft took over the city. The income of self-employed yellow taxi drivers fell sharply, their skyrocketing loans and interest rates remained.
On under
Thousands of taxi drivers found themselves in deep financial trouble. Some are in debt as high as $700,000, driving them to despair. Several drivers took their own lives, including Richard Chow’s brother.
Like Richard, his brother Kenny was also a taxi driver. They were both up to their necks in debt. Each month, they pay nearly $4,000 in loans. They worked 7 days a week and barely had anything left.
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Kenny Chow went completely under and took his own life in 2018. His brother Richard sees the hunger strike as a tribute. “I’m fighting here for my brother, for 6,000 other licensees and for justice,” he told CBS News earlier this week.
War of attrition
Day by day, more attention was being paid to the hunger strike. But because the desired result was not achieved, it became a heavy battle of attrition. Still, the drivers persisted. “I am incredibly tired and have a huge headache,” Augustine Tang says in the video below after 7 days of hunger strike.
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Despite
This Wednesday it was time. The City of New York and the taxi drivers’ union reached an agreement to partially pay off millions in debt. That will be reduced from an average of $500,000 to $170,000. The city also guarantees if drivers cannot pay the rest.
“We’ve finally made history, I’m very proud,” Richard Chow told The City News. He was still in debt of nearly $390,000. So there is now a solution. But he won’t get his brother back with it.
“If this had happened three years ago, I could have celebrated it with him. I miss him and am heartbroken. If I could I would tell him: we are going to save 6000 other drivers, no more bankruptcies and no more suicides. “
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