Uber, Lyft drivers won’t pick up passengers at LaGuardia Airport on Sunday in pay protest strike

Travelers will need to find another way to their final destinations Sunday from LaGuardia Airport, where Lyft and Uber drivers plan a 12-hour strike in hope of securing a pay raise.

The strike is to be held ahead of public hearings next week on a Taxi and Limousine Commission plan to raise the required minimum pay rate for rideshare divers.

“We don’t have any assurances that Uber or Lyft will not sue to block the raise,” said Bhairavi Desai, head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. “All drivers are seeing is stagnant incomes and higher operating expenses.”

An Uber spokeswoman said Tuesday that the city’s rideshare drivers are well-compensated.

“On February 1, drivers got their third mandated raise since 2020 and now make $31.66/hour,” said Uber’s Freddi Goldstein. “This is the only industry in the state with a yearly required increase tied to the rate of inflation, while minimum wage workers have not had one raise since 2018.”

Goldstein added that rideshare drivers’ minimum pay rate has gone up more than city workers’ pay in the past two years.

A spokesman for Lyft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sunday’s strike will be the third labor action by the city’s rideshare drivers since Uber sued to block a TLC-mandated pay raise in December.

Uber argued in December that the TLC’s proposed raise could tarnish the firm’s reputation, burden riders during the holidays and depress demand, hurting drivers. It also said the commission used flawed inflation figures in determining the new rates.

The global rideshare giant posted record profits last year.

While the earlier strikes were citywide, Desai said Sunday’s action will be “targeted,” with drivers declining to make pickups at LaGuardia and instead forming a picket line in the airport’s cell phone waiting lot.

Rideshare service to LaGuardia — and to and from other locations throughout the city — will not be affected.

Desai said her members were “feeling fired up” over Uber’s legal challenge to the pay raise granted by the TLC.

“[Uber’s] lawsuit was insult upon injury,” she said. “It’s one thing to fight for raises. This is a raise that was given and was taken out of their hands.”