making it -- my name is joe donohue. i would like to thank the mta for taking a three men at license renewal and making it a three hour ordeal. you need to figure out whether we are employees are independent contractors. if we are employees, i want a salary. i want benefits. [applause] >> sammy aryan, alec dutt, michael monroe. >> i am a cab driver. there is a reason that 90% of the industry is not represented. a doctor does not go after a healthy person. the cab drivers, 50% does not come to them. it has to pay for medication, sick leave, vacations, everything. that is why they cannot attend.

the other thing is it has been mentioned we are not employees. we would be happy to be your employees. give us the benefits. the thing is that cabbies that drive 20 years, they take home less than an entry-level muni worker. just look at your numbers. how much do you want to milk the scout? until blood come stacks -- how much you want to milk this cow? until blood comes? >> good afternoon. i am a cabdriver. of course, i am not going to add more than my colleagues have done. regarding the 5%, it is too high

for a charge. that is what we are protesting. also, regarding that we are not employees to mta. the other issue is to have our personnel -- our personal transactions monitored by an electronic waybill gives access to our income to parties that are not the irs. i feel this is not right and we have to protect our rights. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is alouc dutt. i have been driving for seven years. right here, it is not right. charging 5% is out of sight. if this does not change, i

believe in martin luther king and mahatma gandhi. i will go to work if this does not change for my driver's. -- drivers. >> michael monroe, marcello fonseca. >> my name is michael monroe. i have been driving cabs in san francisco for over 22 years. i am in medallion honor. the 5% is ridiculous. i have talked to all my customers. they do not mind paying a fee. i had one guy last night took me $35 because he thought it was a travesty. -- tipped me $35 because he thought it was a travesty. do you want to lose the suit -- do you want to lose $30 every two nights from your check? i do not think so. the way bills -- we are not employees, guys.

we are independent contractors. you are making us employees. you want us to be independent contractors so you don't pay us benefits, but you want to make us employees by tracking every move we make. that is ridiculous. you can't have it both ways. you just set yourself up for a lawsuit. [applause] >> next speaker. >> i am adala mankata. i am a single mother, a cabdriver for yellow. i am here to protest against the 5% that is being done. it has been implemented before we even were notified about it. that to me is a big stress. somebody pays me $24 for their ride, and what do i get?

$20. my take is gone. what am i going to do? if you're going to take the 5%, put it on the benefits we need for each of us, so we get our medical, we get everything, all the benefits we are supposed to have. this is ridiculous. chairperson nolan: thank you. >> marcello fonseca, mohammed rozzick, festus ajahi. is marcello here? >> i am here, but i will pass. >> is mr. roxxick here? brad nusham, lack winderpal. >> hello, mr. president and the

board. this is the schedule of fees i have to go to before i get my money out of the atm machine. and they limit whenever i can take out. if somebody can give you this, i am happy to give you a copy. 5% credit-card fee. what is that? where is our health care benefit or any of the benefit we were promised to get when the fee increased from $95 to $107? what is always everything against cabdrivers, not the company's tax -- not the companyies? we already have to raise $150 before we pay for the gate and the gas. who carries cash these days? everybody wants to pay by credit card. there is no possible way.

>> fastest -- festus araji, lackwinder pal. >> good afternoon. one thing i want to say to the mta today is that without the drivers there is no company. the driver is the company. it might be a rolls royce. we are the company. the 5% you are taxing us is wrong. also, when you come into play the gate, you have to pay cash for your pocket. if it is a credit card, you get your payment tomorrow. that this very wrong. we have to come by and pay cash out of our pocket.

every day i go to cash in and the charge is 3%. put a stop to all this. i don't know what to call it. it is taking over. >> brad newsham. >> i have been a cab driver for 25 years. i am with green tab. i say it is time for a strike to put the cab industry on the front pages. but the cab industry on the front pages and on the airwaves. you go up in the street and used up 10 pedestrians, you stop 10 cabdrivers, no one knows the shenanigans going on here. no one knows that in 2007 a group of shady politicians, still anonymous, in a dark room not far from this room, slipped three sentences into a 10 page transportation bill and delivered the cab industry bound

and gagged to the mta. it has been a disaster. no one knows that the high benefit high salaried employees from the mta have been taking billions of dollars from the minimum wage, zero benefit cabdrivers. the city of san francisco has always had a soft spot for the cab drivers. i think it is time for a strike to make this thing public. [applause] >> tarik mahmoud, lackwinder pal, anjan raj, roshan bata. >> good afternoon, directors. i am a driver. first of all, you are helping

the double. -- the devil. all the drivers, when i die, come to see me. i would still like to see your faces. i love them. when we were in pain, or taxi deputy director went on an official trip with two president of the cap companies. there are many other things to investigate. at the last meeting, she went on vacation again. after that, our money was taken away by the cab companies. we have no money. we were drinking water and eating air. when we send an e-mail to the board, he did not pay any attention. i told him the meetings planned -- >> next speaker, please. >> lackinder pal, poshada, samir

pradhan. chairperson nolan: any of those folks here? >> this is roshan batar. i do not know the use of speaking here. the last time we spoke, nothing happened. it is starting again. if we are just wasting our time, i do not know. mta has to get together and find out whether we are independent or employees. award us like your employees. 25 years later, what do we end up with? we end up with a crippled leg. we will be out of a job. if you want to control us, cap companies like yellow cab -- cab

companies like yellow cab -- are you with us or are you with them? you are not taking our side. we are the ones who are solving you. we are the ones taking you to the hospital and the airport. >> is lackwinder pal here? pesada? steven caddis, kile gebrhal, aileg gashan. >> my name is samir padan. no electronic waybills. i am paying $15 an hour to be here. i do not know if mta is going to

pay for me or i have to pay for myself. the other thing is the 5% charge. then the company can pay me to% to send the money to my account. -- can pay me 2% to send money to my account. >> stephen gebshrel, ali gashan, ang ho. >> i am a taxi driver for five years. electronic waybills -- systems go down. credit card systems go down. there will be no taxes service. that system could go down for days. nobody has mentioned it. why do you have to track everything we do? that is all i have to say.

i will do what everybody else tries to have me do. >> pilar tileg, aieli gashan, mohammad offshart, eng ho. >> my name is padavid pasada. my comment is this. this is capitalism at its worst. look at the faces of the people who have spoken here. can you imagine if they say to their homeland that capitalism is not being practiced by san

francisco? they come from all over the continent of africa, the middle east, india, south america. these people will cry out to their homeland, telling their relatives and friends that capitalism does not exist in san francisco. i am an action man. this is a hard-earned dollar. i am donating $20 to my mother. [applause] >> mohamad offshart, eng ho, rashad ahmed. >> good afternoon. i have been driving taxis about

15 years. as i see it, we cabdrivers are a wonderful, a key service for the city. but i don't know that the city administration -- you don't see us like that. we are very valuable as an asset here. i do not see any city bodies seen that way. if you're seen that way, 15 years driving -- some cabdrivers have to under 50,000 -- 250,000. i do not believe that has ever happened.

>> eng ho, rashad ahmed, jamal anshasi, alud nemezee, mayint fan, john han, sato to. albert ma, mary mcguire, ashak agautam, john gallardo. chairperson nolan: we will give them time to get here. >> john gallardo. if i call your name, if you would stand up. chairperson nolan: we have a few. good afternoon, sir.

>> how are you doing? i dry yellow. we are coming here every meeting. we have been coming here every meeting, and you guys don't do nothing. you just listen to us. a warning might sound a little bit funny, but we mean it. if you don't do anything about this 5% electronic waybill, we are going to go on strike. [applause] we're going to go on strike. we are going to go on strike. that includes airports, hospitals, parks, union square, and fisherman's wharf. you have to do something. i don't understand. are we living in castro's cuba here? the head of the division tells me everything that comes out of my mouth is wrong.

that is what she tells me. it is embarrassing. do something. [applause] >> rashad ahmed. chairperson nolan: several speakers i have come in. >> good afternoon. i want to congratulate you guys for treating us like secondhand citizens. despite% you want us to pay is not fair. -- this 5% you want us to pay is not fair. push the taxi driver to the count all the time. nobody likes this job. we get killed. we get hurt. nobody addresses that. all of the many drivers i know, they get benefits.

i get nothing. we deserve to be treated like citizens. thank you very much. chairperson nolan: we have several further names. >> good afternoon. my name is albert ma. i was a u.s. navy for 20 years. i want to mention basic common sense. mta, if you want your taxi driver like an employee, you have to give them benefits. if green cabbage -- cab, you need a lot of the caps that are empty. that is not a real green cab. we have never raised the matter for seven years. that is ridiculous.

5% on this credit card is nonsense. they charge the passenger or the credit card owner. i would like to mention the robbery of cabdrivers. their safety is important. thank you, your honors. >> good afternoon. i am a cabdriver. i have been driving for 26 years. i want to say that this whole thing is an industry of exploitation, mainly on the shoulders of the non-owner cabdriver. all of us are being exploited. i am on the list. no fair-minded panel of people would ever, if they could see this and this was news, allow this system for 85%.

these people have to pay the benefits of the 15% of medallion holders. either we are employees or we are not. we would jump for joy if we had half the benefits that they knew the driver has. -- back 8 munich driver has -- that a muni driver has. >> i took a day off like so many people and sacrificed pay to get my word in. john heim, san francisco cab driver. i got statistics from a survey done on 22,000 riders in new york on taxi tv's. that is related to the 5% credit card fee. that is required of cab companies. the survey is saying that over 30% of those writers in new york city said that was the most

annoying and worst experience of taking a taxi cab, second only to the high price of taking a cab. the other thing i have here is the city justification on charging as 5% to subsidize the cost on the equipment installations and the maintenance. this is saying we are only getting about 18% on average from tip prompters. taxi tv are the ones making the money. >> gas prices are killing us. we are paying $10, $15 a ship, a lot of money. we are being hit by very high credit card fees. everybody can go on the market -- bank of america, so many companies. you pay 2.5%. why is it 5% for us? who is making the profit?

i have kids. we want to put our kids in good schools. we want to put we are family pe. why are you not on our side? beyond the side of the family people that are working hard and fighting for their families. [applause] >> if i could read a few names. [reading names] >> it is the same survey that john talked about.

it will bounce right back on to me about the millions of dollars being given to the bank of omaha. i saw the hundreds of cabs and circling. hundreds of drivers downstairs hall lined up and waiting to speak. you need to talk to john martin. ask him how it felt to have this airport shut down for five days in september of 2002. i have no doubt that these drivers have the power. it is the same reason. unilateral decisions coming from the top and not listening to people that do the work. talk to him. [applause] director nolan: good afternoon. >> i'm a yellow driver.

i want to just say that i think there are alternatives to the 5% credit-card charges. all of those drivers -- to buy some gas from the company and get the best price you can. i don't think they are behind this or in collusion with the company. we're lucky to have someone of her caliber working for us.

she may have just been surprised by the 5%. [applause] >> we have everything we have, [unintelligible] thank you. >> good afternoon, sir. and i have been driving over 20 years. it would give good service to

our community. everybody has three kids, for kids. we're helping our community. and think he should support it. and thank you. >> [reading names]

>> and amos solomon and i am a cabdriver. where you save the meeting will be on may 11. [unintelligible] during the license they give us for cabdrivers, we don't have to fill out the column. it is not their business to know how much we are making. from now, when it is not federal law or state law.