http://m.thenation.com/blog/179555-how-new-yorks-taxi-drivers-lost-their-health-insurance-fund
When I read wrong information about my occupation in the Mainstream media it annoys me. But I expect it. They have no respect for taxi drivers and their agenda is racist and anti worker . The Mainstream Media is also slipshod in their research and lazy in their fact checking. Many have a philosophical contempt for facts and reality to begin with. Taxi drivers as a class are a time honored punching bag that doesn't often talk back. You can slam them and misrepresent them usually with no problem.
When I saw Michelle Chen's blog post in the left of center The Nation I was ready for misinformation both because Bhairavi Desai has much of the left flimflammed and when you're doing a puff piece (on Bhairavi Desai) and a hatchet job (on Judge Margaret A. Chan and the immigrant taxi drivers who had the nerve to go to court for their rights).you're bound to play fast and loose with the facts.
Not mentioned is the fact that the first hurdle the so called health plan failed to surmount was approval (registration) by the Comptroller. This was denied by John Liu.. Scott Stringer's office sent me an email stating that the Desai plan remains unregistered. A journalist ought to have known this if writing about the plan and would have taken the bother to try to find out why.
Filed under "Jokes" you will find New York Taxi Worker's Alliance's claim to 17,000 members.
Also under "Jokes" you can find the complaint about fleet owners opposition to hybrid taxis. When Bloomberg was enamored of them one group of taxi owners fought and won in Court to not be forced to buy them. Most owners went with Bloomberg's wishes.
Bloomberg later fell in love with the Taxi of Tomorrow a non hybrid. As part of tbe six cent deal Desai became an advocate. Now the biggest joke: David Yassky's concern for taxi drivers' health. Ms. Desai says that Yassky has been the drivers' best friend taxi commissioner ever. Odd when he never enforced the insurance requirements Chen writes about but rather shakes the drivers down to pay for a fishy rulebook and auditor free plan presumably whose unbudgeted funds would be in the care of Ms. Desai.
