I think it really frosted them that taxi business was being
impacted negatively by Uber and Lift.
I suspect that was a factor behind all this.
It probably bothered them more that they hadn’t come up with
enough onerous regulations for this field yet.
That’s exactly what happened.
How New York Taxi Workers Took On Uber and Won
August 23, 2018
The state’s Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board ruled against Uber in July, stipulating that its drivers are employees eligible for unemployment insurance. Misclassifying drivers as independent contractors has allowed Uber and Lyft to evade payroll taxes for hundreds of thousands of drivers across the country and to cheat those drivers of overtime and minimum wage protections—not to mention the right to organize a union.
https://labornotes.org/2018/08/how-new-york-taxi-workers-took-uber-and-won