As stated in the SMH by Matthew Knott on 2 September 2018, New York: On a Monday morning in February Doug Schifter, a New York City cab driver, wrote an angry 1700-word Facebook post outlining his despair at the state of his industry.
“Companies do not care how they abuse us just so the executives get their bonuses,” the 61-year-old veteran of New York’s taxi and hire car industry wrote. “They have not paid us fair rates for some time now.
Schifter blamed local politicians for allowing ride share services like Uber and Lyft to saturate the city’s streets with cheap competition.
“I will not be a slave working for chump change,” he wrote. “I would rather be dead.”
A few hours later he drove to City Hall and shot himself.
Schifter’s suicide was not an isolated event. In March, 65-year-old cab driver Nicanor Ochisor took his life at his home in Queens. Ochisor was distressed by the plummeting value of his taxi medallion – the equivalent of an Australian taxi licence – which he had hoped would fund his retirement.
