The Milwaukee Yellow
Cab company has suspended drivers who attended first Amendment protected free speech
rally at Milwaukee city hall and criticized the city for refusing to put more taxis on
the road.
The Institute of Justice
a public interest law Firm that represents cab drivers in a lawsuit against the city of
Milwaukee challenging the city's cap on the number of taxicabs, has hit out at Milwaukee Yellow Cab Corporative for suppressing
drivers from speaking publicly about the city cab limit policy. It is looking
at whether the yellow cab corporative has broken the law.
. According to the release from the Institute of Justice,
says " the Milwaukee taxicab
cartel is now punishing drivers who dared to stand up against the
government-enforced monopoly. Today Yellow Cab Cooperative, a dispatch
service, suspended from service at least 20 of the drivers who participated in
a peaceful "freedom ride" earlier this week. The cab drivers, who would
like to drive for themselves, are forced
The freedom ride
protest was organized by the Institute for Justice, a national public interest
Harpreet Singh, a
suburban taxicab owner and driver who participated in the protest and therefore
is--due to owning his own cab--not affected by the suspensions, reported to the
Institute for Justice that protest participants' machines in their cabs
suddenly went dark today and Yellow Cab ceased giving them new fares. A
meeting between Yellow Cab and the owners of the cabs involved in the protest
is reportedly planned for Monday, November 5, where they will discuss how to
deal with the drivers who were expressing their view that the city's current
taxi law is unjust.
This assault on
the cab drivers' speech comes in the wake of a major lawsuit by the Institute
for Justice: Should the city of Milwaukee be allowed to outlaw
competition in the taxi market, causing permits to rise in price from $85 to a
staggering $150,000?
In 1991, the city
of Milwaukee prohibited any new entrepreneurs from entering the taxi
market. The city council imposed a hard cap of 321 taxis for the entire
city, and made it so that the only way to get a taxi permit was to purchase one
from an existing permit holder. As a result, today the city has just one
taxi for every 1,850 residents (compared to 1 in 90 for Washington, D.C., and 1
in 480 for Denver). Because of the government-imposed scarcity of taxi
permits, the cost of those permits has risen in price from $85 to $150,000--more
than the average cost of a house in Milwaukee.
"In the classic
story of entrepreneurship, someone starts a taxi business in order to save up
enough money to buy a house," said IJ Staff Attorney Anthony Sanders , lead counsel in today's
lawsuit. "In Milwaukee, you need to save up enough money to buy a house
just to start a taxi business."
As explained in an
Institute for Justice study, Unhappy Days for Milwaukee
Entrepreneurs , the city's taxi law does nothing but funnel money to
a small group of entrenched businesses at the expense of entrepreneurs, who
lose out on opportunities, and at the expense of consumers, who face poor
service and long wait times.
"It isn't the
government's role to play favorites, protecting a special few from
competition," said Sanders. "If the government tried to artificially
limit any other industry, saying only 30 restaurants or three hardware stores
could operate in town, everyone would agree it's completely arbitrary and
wrong."
The Institute for
Justice has helped open taxi markets in cities across the country, and for 20
years has been the nation's leading legal advocate for the rights of
entrepreneurs. For more on today's lawsuit, visit www.ij.org/MKETaxis .
