Taxi Drivers, Astoria Lawmaker On Hunger Strike For Debt Relief

ASTORIA-LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — Zohran Mamdani, the state Assembly Member representing northwest Queens, joined dozens of taxi drivers in a hunger strike on Wednesday, as drivers call on the city to offer a more aggressive debt relief plan for taxi medallion loans.

The hunger strike follows a month of daily strikes by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, or NYTWA; a group representing medallion owners, many of whom owe hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in predatory medallion loans.

In the early aughts, industry leaders drove up the price of medallions — which allow drivers to own their taxis — to the benefit of the city and the detriment of mostly-immigrant drivers, especially when the industry collapsed, the New York Times reported.

“The average driver is over half a million in debt for a taxi medallion they cannot even use to make a living wage,” wrote Mamdani in a statement about his decision to go on hunger strike. “The city has given drivers the false choice of debt or death. Today, we will make clear the stakes of this choice.”

In March, the city provided a relief fund to help medallion owners restructure their loans, which they said could reduce debt by as much as $200,000 with monthly payments of no more than $1,500.

A litany of drivers and advocates, however, say that the city’s program falls short for the many drivers who owe upwards of $500,000 in debt, instead calling for a plan that refinances loans to $145,000 with monthly payments of no more than $800.

The mayor has said that the NYTWA’s proposal is not financially feasible, though city Comptroller Scott Stringer and a dozen members of the NYC congressional delegation — including several from Queens — have endorsed the proposal as fiscally sound.

“From everyday workers to the most powerful elected officials in this state, the coalition that has rallied to support us is broad, strong, and more committed than ever to victory,” said NYTWA’s executive director, Bhairavi Desai, in a statement released before the hunger strike.

After 31 days of strikes and citywide actions, Desai restated the NYTWA’s commitment to protest the mayor’s relief fund, which she says still consigns many drivers to “a lifetime of poverty and death in a debt trap.”

“We will be in the streets until we get what’s owed: a city-backed guarantee on medallion debt that allows for real relief.”

Shahana Hanif, the likely soon-to-be City Council Member in Brooklyn’s 39th District, and Jaslin Kaur, who ran for City Council in Queens’ 23rd District, are also participating in the hunger strike.

The taxi medallion crisis was part of both South Asian candidates’ platforms, in part because of their experiences seeing how the medallion financial collapse impacted their communities and families, The City reported.