Law to require companies to compensate drivers for illegal account deactivation: NYTWA

New York City’s For-hire Vehicle (FHV) drivers would be able to file a claim for ‘lost wages’ and get paid during the period they lost money because of illegal deactivations by technology networking companies – Uber and Lyft.

“You will be entitled to backpay for the money you lost, for the time that you were illegally deactivated,” Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), told ‘TLC Drivers Voice’ correspondent Kamal Ahmed.

At the NYTWA rally on Jan 29 at the stairs of the City Council, in reply to a question on the next steps after the council passes the bill, Desai said, “Whoever is the fact finder will look at the reason for deactivation and determine, was this a legal deactivation?”

The City Council, on the same day, voted to override 17 veto issues by former Mayor Erric Adams, more in a single day than the last 10 years combined.

Bhairavi Desai, a key member of Mayor Mamdani’s mayoral committee on Worker Justice, said, “And if they determine under the facts that it was not, then they must order that the companies put you back on the app and allow you to go back to work, and you will be entitled to backpay for the money that you lost, for the time, that you were illegally deactivate.”

“So once the council passes the bill today, as we expect them to, by tomorrow, the bill will officially become the law in New York City. And then the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, DCWP, Commissioner Levine, was standing with us today. DCWP is the agency that will oversee this law and make sure that Uber and Lyft do not violate the law,” she added.

DCWP will have 180 days to put the rules and regulations and the paperwork and everything together, and then after those 180 days is when the law will become effective, she said and added that now, that means moving forward, if there are deactivations after those 180 days, if the cause of the deactivation is not egregious misconduct, a serious issue, then drivers will have the right to a 14 days’ notice. 

The notice will be issued on a form that the city will require the companies to use. 
And then the driver would be able to go to DCWP, file a complaint that they have received a notice that, in 14 days, they will be deactivated. Then the agency will allow you to contact the company’s Uber or Lyft and start a resolution process for 15 days. Here’s the thing: during those 15 days under the law, Uber and Lyft must communicate with you. 

“So if you provide them with evidence, they have to look at that evidence. They have to tell you the exact reason why you’re being deactivated. In those 15 days, if you can resolve it, then, you know, you will not be deactivated, and it’ll be over.”

The labor leader said, “If you do not resolve it, you can then go ahead and file your complaint with the city agency to investigate the deactivation, or you could go to arbitration, or if you opted out of arbitration, you could go to state court. And whoever you go to, whether it’s the agency and arbitrator or state judge, they, under the law, will have to look at the same factors. They will have to look to see where you give a proper notice.”

NYTWA is a 28,000-member strong union of the city’s taxicab and for-hire drivers. Its executive director, Bhairavi Desai, was the primary driving force behind the 2021 hunger strike and City Hall protest. This 15-day strike and long-term protest led to a historic $65 million debt relief for taxi drivers.