National Affairs: Taxi Strike

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Five weeks ago Pittsburgh's Parmalee Transportation Co., owner of all but 18 of the city's taxicabs, changed its system of paying drivers. Instead of receiving $3 on the first $9 collected and 20% of receipts over $11, drivers were to get 37½% of metred receipts. Parmalee's drivers, some 1,500, demanded 40%. Refused, they organized a union, struck. Parmalee hired strikebreakers ("taxi-scabs") to operate their green and yellow cars. The 2½% difference between the company and the union became a mighty issue of principle which even Secretary of Labor James John Davis, right in his home town, could not mediate.

Last week Pittsburgh's taxi strike became violent, culminated in a pitched battle. Like wolves, small packs of strikers ran about the streets of the East Liberty business district, threw bricks, stones, milk-bottles at every passing cab. They swooped down on parked cabs, drove off drivers, wrecked their machines. Gradually the scattered groups grew larger, coalesced into a thousand-headed monster thinking trouble. Every police reserve in the city raced to disperse the mob. Mounted police charged it unsuccessfully. When the rioting held up traffic, passengers piled out of street cars, joined the fight. Only after three hours did rioters scatter before tear gas bombs. Casualties: 86 injured, 11 jailed.

Meanwhile in New York City taxi grumblings, never still, grew louder. All companies complained that current prices were too low for profits. The city has some 250 cab companies, owning 24,000 taxicabs, operated by 70,000 drivers. The prevalent rate, cheapest in the U. S., is 15¢ for the first quarter-mile, 5¢ for each succeeding quarter-mile. Small companies, ramshackle independents charge more; their cabs are avoided by the city-wise. All drivers get 40% of metred receipts. With twelve-hour shifts, day men may get $30 or $40 per week. Night men, with more business, say they must drive over 100 miles per night to earn $50 per week.

Last week New York taxi tension increased when Luxford Taxicab Co. announced that it would soon have 1,000 Ford cabs on the city streets, would charge only 15 cents per mile. Fearing violent taxi warfare, Police Commissioner Grover Aloysius Whalen who licenses all cabs and drivers interrupted his Florida fishing to telephone a stern prohibition against the new cut rate.