SF Taxi drivers picket mayor’s visit to Uber headquarters

SF Taxi drivers picket mayor’s visit to Uber headquarters
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Taxi-drivers-picket-mayor-s-visit...
By Emily Green Updated 6:19 pm, Monday, June 22, 2015

A contingent of taxi drivers and their supporters marched against Mayor Lee and Uber Monday June 22, 2015. A protest against Uber on Market Street in San Francisco, Calif. drew several dozen taxi drivers and their supporters near where the National Conference of Mayors was taking place.

A contingent of taxi drivers and their supporters marched against Mayor Lee and Uber Monday June 22, 2015. A protest against Uber on Market Street in San Francisco, Calif. drew several dozen taxi drivers and their supporters near where the National Conference of Mayors was taking place.BUY THIS PHOTO

Taxi Drivers Picket Mayor?s Visit to Uber Headquarters

Taxi drivers angry over the incursion of ride-hailing services into their turf protested outside Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco Monday as Mayor Ed Lee led officials from the national mayors conference on a tour meant to show off Uber’s benefit to the city.
The roughly two dozen protesters said Uber enjoys looser regulations than those that govern taxi drivers on such issues as compliance with disability-access laws, using environmentally-friendly cars, and submitting to background checks requiring fingerprint records.
“It’s unfair competition. They are making a race to the bottom,” said Barry Korengold, a spokesman for the irritated taxi drivers. “It’s not competing — it’s cheating.”

In a statement, Lee’s spokeswoman Christine Falvey rejected that description.
Companies such as Uber and Lyft, she said, “are helping people move around the city with more options and are providing people with extra income to get by in an expensive city. It helps with affordability and, of course, the mayor believes the industry should be regulated.”
Uber and Lyft are regulated at the state level by the California Public Utilities Commission, while taxis are regulated at the city level. Taxi drivers and other critics assail the CPUC rules as creating an unequal playing field.
The state legislature has waded into the debate, implementing new insurance requirements for Uber and Lyft that take effect July 1, but taxi drivers say the dictates are not as strict as the ones they have to adhere to. Among drivers’ other beefs are that cities control what taxis charge, while Uber and Lyft are free to lower prices to undercut taxis — and then raise them during surge periods of extra demand.
Former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who is running to win his old seat back, made an appearance at the afternoon rally to support the taxi drivers.
He said Uber perpetrates a business model “akin to the exploitative practices of the railroad barons of the 1850’s, 60s.”
The San Francisco-based company is valued at $50 billion and operates in hundreds of U.S. cities and 57 countries.
And while its services are ubiquitous in San Francisco and many other cities, not all the mayors at the U.S. Conference of Mayors — which was being held in San Francisco and ended on Monday — were eager to embrace the company.
Paul Soglin, the liberal mayor of Madison, Wis., has opposed Uber in his city and called for a resolution seeking restrictions on the ride-sharing industry, but the mayors conference on Saturday rejected his proposal.
Carolyn Said contributed to this story.
Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen