When taxi drivers are finally able to work in dignified conditions, free from the yoke of taxi companies, the quality of taxi and ride-hailing services are sure to markedly improve and be far more efficient. We believe that Miami-Dade County Commissioners have the capacity to figure out a way of coexistence between the TNEs and the taxi system and to treat them fairly without impartiality.
We need to calm the rhetoric in this debate around regulation of Uber and Lyft. I can’t understand how Uber, valued at over $60 billion, can say that following minimum measures to protect its drivers and consumers would hurt the wild success the company has already enjoyed in this county.
Or how the mayor can say that a piece of county legislation would “drive Uber and Lyft out of business.” It’s clear people love Uber, and Uber is here to stay. But the county still has the responsibility to ensure that passengers have drivers who are trained and professional, and that everyone — including those who are differently abled — has access to transportation if they need it. Giving Uber free rein to dictate how the system runs just does not do that.
MEENA JAGANNATH, COMMUNITY JUSTICE PROJECT, MIAMI
Commissioner Dennis Moss, who chairs the transportation committee, voted for the measures but said he is worried that cab drivers who already struggle to make ends meet — many do not own the taxis they lease — would face a slew of new charges to operate credit-card machines and pay for newer vehicles.
“You’ve set up a system where the drivers are bearing the brunt of the professionalization, but there’s no way to make sure that they’re being adequately compensated,” said Charles Elsesser, an attorney for the New Vision Taxi Drivers Association of Miami.
Miami Beach's lowest paid employees will see a pay raise nearly a decade in the making after elected officials voted to obey the city's own laws and increase its living wage.
Commissioners unanimously agreed Wednesday to hike the minimum hourly wage payable to employees of the city and its major contractors by about $1.50 come Oct. 1.
It took three months for a group of 20 workers, men and women of all ages and nationalities, to finish scrubbing down and clearing away the dust at a newly renovated Miami Beach hotel.
The industrial cleaning crew worked for little more than minimum wage, hurrying to prepare the hotel in time for its reopening. But when payday arrived, they received only half of what they were owed by a subcontractor, according to Honduran worker Angelica Pinto.
The hotel bellman worked without breaks for a 16-hour shift when he was asked, but didn't get the contracted gratuity in his paycheck. A landscape subcontractor promised Guatemalan workers $100 a day for a week's work but disappeared on pay day. People in low-paying jobs -- U.S.-born and migrants alike -- are overly susceptible to unscrupulous employers who exploit them, as the South Florida Wage Theft Task Force has found.
Miami Beach — When Miami Beach became the first Florida city to pass a living-wage law in 2001, the legislation was hailed as a progressive move toward guaranteeing all full-time workers pay that would put them at or over the federal poverty line.
But these days, discussion of the city's law evokes words like ``sad'' and ``shocked.''
That's because for nearly nine years, Miami Beach has ignored the part of its law that requires the living wage be updated every year, leaving the lowest-paid employees of the city and city contractors at an hourly rate dollars below what it should be under the city ordinance.
