Photo by Sarah Anne Hughes.

At the headquarters of Teamsters Local 922 in Northeast D.C., over one thousand cab drivers gathered to declare they’re mad as hell about new regulations and they aren’t going to take it anymore.

“We will win!” the crowd chanted after Ferline Buie, president of Teamsters Local 922, said that the union would help drivers win “fairness, justice, equality, dignity and respect” through their new association.

“We’re here to tell the D.C. Taxicab Commission that these regulations have been handled totally unfair,” Buie said. “We need more time to deal with these new and costly regulations. We also want to make sure that the drivers aren’t burdened … with the costs of these new regulations.”

Stanley Tapscott, a D.C. Taxicab Commission commissioner and driver for 50 years, told those assembled “We’ve been beaten down a lot of times.”

“Now what we need is strength,” he said.

Like many of the drivers in the room, Tapscott took issue with the costs levied on drivers for modernization projects, like credit card readers and new dome lights.

He also questioned aloud whether race played a part in the Council’s decision making regarding taxi drivers. “Are they prejudiced?” Tapscott asked of certain Councilmembers. “I don’t know.” This elicited many responses from the crowd, including one from a man who shouted “They’re ignorant.”

Jeff Farmer, Teamsters director of organizing, said that over 1,000 drivers had joined the Taxi Operators Association. (Updated numbers should come in this morning.) Verbally the group agreed to pay $25 a month in dues. They also agreed on a plan of action that includes meeting with Mayor Vince Gray, pushing for an emergency resolution in the Council for a moratorium on new regulations and attending the next DCTC meeting in November.

After the meeting, one veteran driver, who identified himself as the ambassador to the city, said the DCTC is disrespectful to drivers and is “waging a war” against them. He said he may retire in a few years, but he’s fighting now for young drivers.

Several drivers told DCist that service charges from their credit card payment service provider were higher than expected, as high as five percent. One driver said he had not been paid since September 28.

One driver showed DCist an email from USA Motors, Inc. – one of eight PSPs approved by the DCTC – informing him that they were terminating their payment service agreement. The DCTC confirmed this in a statement, saying that no-cost transfers to another PSP were available. The driver seemed dubious, saying it was up to him to go through the process once again.

The ambassador said he was grateful in a way to the DCTC for imposing the new regulations because it had united previously divided drivers.