Can My Owner or Base Retaliate If I Complain to TLC?

No. TLC rules forbid taxi owners, FHV vehicle owners, FHV bases, green cab owners and high-volume companies like Uber and Lyft from retaliating against a driver for a good-faith complaint. "Retaliation" is read broadly: any punishment, or taking away anything good you had, because you complained. A first violation costs the company $1,000 plus restitution to you for your losses; a second within five years costs $10,000 plus restitution. Report it to TLC's Driver Protection Unit.

This is general information, not legal advice.

The rule, company by company

Each type of TLC licensee that deals with drivers has its own anti-retaliation rule. They use almost the same words:

Sources: Chapter 59, Chapter 58 and Chapter 82 of the TLC rules.

Notice the difference for yellow taxi drivers: rule 58-21(j) protects complaints about the leasing rules (lease caps, extra charges, deposits, receipts). TLC's taxi driver bill of rights puts it simply: "Owners may not retaliate against drivers who make complaints to the TLC against owners for breaking TLC rules."

What counts

Every one of these rules says retaliation "will be broadly construed, and will include imposing any adverse condition or consequence on the Driver or withholding or withdrawing any beneficial condition or consequence from the Driver." In everyday terms, things like:

• cancelling or refusing to renew your lease, or moving you to worse shifts;
• adding charges, or holding back money you are owed;
• cutting your dispatches, or removing your access to a bonus you had;
• threatening you to drop the complaint.

Whether a specific action was retaliation is decided case by case. Keep dates: when you complained, and when the bad treatment started.

How the Driver Protection Unit handles it

TLC's Driver Protection Unit page lists "retaliation for filing a complaint with the TLC" among the illegal conduct the unit investigates, alongside unpaid trips, unreturned deposits, missing leases and receipts, and lease overcharges. Contact: DriverProtection@tlc.nyc.gov or (718) 391-5539 (the number printed on TLC's driver bill of rights posters).

When you write, include:

1. your name and TLC license number;
2. the company and what your first complaint was about, with the date;
3. what happened afterward, with dates, and copies of texts, emails, receipts or app messages.

How the unit works and what it can recover: TLC Driver Protection Unit guide.

Retaliation over discrimination complaints

If your complaint was about discrimination (for example by national origin, religion, race or immigration status), the NYC Human Rights Law also applies. The Commission on Human Rights says the law protects you from retaliation for opposing discrimination, filing a complaint, or taking part in an investigation, "as long as you have a reasonable good faith belief" the conduct was illegal, "even if it turns out that you were mistaken."

Local Law 172 of 2019 made the law's employment protections apply to "interns, freelancers and independent contractors", which matters for drivers who are not employees. The deadline to file with the Commission is one year from the last act (three years for gender-based harassment). See NYC Human Rights Law for drivers.

Related: my base didn't pay me for a trip, can my base make me pay a summons, how fast must my base pay me, Owner/Driver Resource Center, TLC 311 complaint statistics, owner liability for street hails, 59A-25(a)(1), accident reporting and the rights topic.