Taxi Drivers Unite!’

Hi all,

Tony Equale sent this to me; I thought I’d pass it on.

John

By Robert Struckman
AFL-CIO Now
April 27, 2012

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Organizing-Bargaining/Taxi-Drivers-Unite!

Under misty clouds that obscured the tops of buildings and in a spitting rain, a bullhorn blared at the front of a low brick building reading Midtown Operating Corp.

Break the silence! Break the isolation!

The man on the microphone was Victor Salazar, a taxi driver and member of the National Taxi Workers Alliance (NTWA), and he was calling to a line of drivers in yellow cabs. Forty members of the NTWA and taxi workers from San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia cheered, chanted and waved signs with messages like “Lower the Lease!” and “Stop the Greed!”

In the midst of the drivers was AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Next to him was NTWA Executive Director Bhairavi Desai, who hollered into the bullhorn, “We’re your union! Taxi drivers unite!”

Drivers nodded. Some honked horns. Then two drivers, who had been standing in line to lease a car for the evening, walked across the driveway and past the tense- looking owners of Midtown to join the picket line. In an industry where drivers can be blacklisted for activism, it was a moment of tremendous courage. The men joined the ranks of drivers and labor leaders and took turns making short speeches. Every now and then the drivers would break into chants, saying, “Shame! Shame!” and “Dri-ver pow-er! Un-ion pow-er!”

The NTWA has held 50 such marches in the past four months to protest crippling credit card fees, high car lease rates and other charges that guarantee generous profits for owners of taxicabs and medallions and a tough existence for drivers. A medallion is a license required for a driver to pick up street hails in New York City.

“I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone,” shouted Trumka into the bullhorn. “Every single worker in the AFL-CIO stands with you, because you’re organizing for the same thing that all workers want-dignity, respect and a decent deal for the work you do!”

Last year, the NTWA became the latest affiliate union of the AFL-CIO and highlighted new organizing efforts by so-called nontraditional workers. The taxi drivers are not employees, but independent contractors. The NTWA is negotiating a change in law to enable it to develop a process for providing health care to taxi workers.

Elections in the US and Europe

I’ll begin with a random TRAF anecdote, but mostly I want to talk about how strange it is to watch the US electies from afar when the Dutch government has just fallen so there will be elections here too.

First, a random anecdote: I remember one year taxi was part of a coalition organizing a festival in Prospect Park celebrating Mayday. We had great plans, but on the day, there was a huge storm and we had to postpone a week. In my mind, I see a gigantic once-in-a-century hurricane. But hurricanes don’t happen in the Spring. Maybe I exaggerate.

The following days were clear and blue sky beautiful. The re-planning meeting was at John Gordon’s 5th Street apartment. We were all pretty discouraged about our plans being rained out.

John played this record:

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone./ I can see all obstacles in my way./ la la la la da da da da da/ It’s gonna be a bright, bright sun shiny day.

Hmmm… Can’t remember the third line. Or who recorded it. But the song restored our enthusiasm.

You may have read recently that the Dutch government has fallen. It’s a parliamentary system and the government lost their majority coalition in Parliament over further austerity policies. It’s even a bit more complicated. The current government was a center-right minority coalition that only remained in power with the votes of a far-right, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam party. But this party refused to back further austerity.

So, the government fell, and on Monday 23 April the Prime Minister handed in his letter of resignation to the Queen. That made it official. New elections are scheduled for 12 September. The current parliament, and the current government continue in place until the elections.

Throughout the Euro zone crisis, the Netherlands has been among stanchest allies of Germany as the wealthy northern European nations demanded that Greece and other southern European nations implement severe austerity policies.  Strong new EU rules–with enforcement mechanisms–require that nations keep their deficit to under 3% of GDP.  These are the rules that the northern European nations demanded from their southern European neighbors as conditions on new financial aid and loans. The economies of Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal have shrunk drastically as they endure strict austerity in order to receive this aid.

Oops! The Netherlands is projecting a larger budget deficit than allowed. The Netherlands is on the verge of breaking one of the strict new rules that they advocated and demanded of the other Euro nations. So, the government fell. But there is this big EU deadline and a budget adhering to the strict guidelines must be submitted to Brussels by the weekend. A few other parties vote with the care-taker (“lame-duck” in US politcal discourse) government parties to approve a modified austerity budget.

The Green-Left party votes for the budget, and cites some funding increases and additional revenue/taxes to pay for it. The Labor Party (PvdA) and the Socialist Party voted against the budget. But who knows what happens when there is a new parliament and new government after the September elections?

“It’s the economy stupid” in both the US and NL elections. Admitedly, the Dutch welfare state is shrinking, but it still provides a high level of services to the Dutch population. The underlying themes in both elections are the same. What is the role of government? What services should government provide or regulate? How do you pay for it? Who pays for it?

The “social issues” that continue to pop up in US elections are non issues in NL. This is the first country in the world that opened up marriage rights to same sex couples over ten years ago. Social policy is a combination of pragmatism, tolerance and progressivism, but mostly pragmatism.

The Netherlands was briefly ruled by Napoleon and many laws and legal norms stem from French legal traditions. Since the mid 1800s, marriage has been solely a civil matter. Church marriages are not recognized for any legal or civil matter. You can of course have a Church wedding if you desire, but you must first have a civil ceremony. Civil marriages have been the norm for almost two centuries, so marriage rights was not a church issue.

Migration, ethnicity and Islam are the Dutch social issues. Post-war migration to the Netherlands came in distinct waves, first from former colonies (Indonesia, Suriname) and more recently from Morocco and Turkey. There is a right-wing backlash against immigration, and against Islam.

Politics can make strange bedfelllows. When I said earlier that sexual orientation was a non-issue in political discourse, I was wrong. It’s much more complex. I won’t go into the history now, but if you asked a political leader or a person on the street to name the ideals that define Dutch culture, tolerance would be at the top of the list. You could debate the pros and cons of tolerance or whether or not Dutch society truly lives up to its ideals, but tolerance is the defining cultural ideal.

Taking this a step further, tolerance for “our” homosexuals has been incorporated into the idealized Dutch cultural self-image. So far so good. Then right-wing anti-immigrant political leaders attack Islam for being anti-homosexual. Using tolerance for LGBT rights as reason to be anti-Islam. Two marginalized groups in society are defined as protagonists, leaving aside the question of LGBT Muslims, and various interpretations on the Koran and sexuality.

It’s bizarre from a US perspective to see the right-wing argue for gay rights. LGBT rights are an issue in political discourse, but in a different way and with strange bedfellows.

So, the US election campaign has been going on full force for at least a year already, and will continue and escalate until November.  Here in Holland, the public campaigning hasn’t begun yet and it will all be over on 12 September. No one even knew there would be elections until last week. The entire campaign, from start to finish in just 5 months! Amazing! Since no party ever wins a majority, the Queen appoints someone to attempt to form a governing majority in the new parliament.

Then all the backroom negotiations begin among the party leaders. After sometimes months of these meetings, and after various failed attempts, the parties sign a comprehensive coalition agreement. It’s kind of like a detailed contract of what the government will do and who will run each ministry. There can be two, three, four or more parties in a governing coalition.

I’ll keep you posted. I’d be interested in hearing your perspectives on current US politics also.

P.S. After I wrote this, I googled and YouTubed. It’s Jimmy Cliff singing

I can see clearly now. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0jsw_r0hILQ

Oscar Night

It’s Oscar night, so it seems like a good occasion to reprint the only movie review the Hot Seat ever printed. We’ve had a lot of debate about who wrote this review. None of us can remember. The most likely candidate would be Charlie since he was always the movie maven of the group. But he denies this is his, saying he would never write such a negative review of a movie he liked. So here it is, from Hot Seat #39 (April-May 1976). The movie was Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro and directed by Martin Scorsese. What do you think? Good review or bad? Do you remember who wrote it? If you prefer you can read it in the original IBM Selectric Courier font here

Taxi Driver

It was a few months ago:  I pick up a guy on upper Central Park West who wants to go to the Lower East Side, through the park and down 7^th and Broadway. As soon as we hit the park he has me close the partition, and then he begins to vomit, so I pull over in front of the Americana, demand the fare, and tell him we usually charge five or ten bucks to clean out the car. He starts to cry, says “Can’t you give me a break, I’ve got to pay rent, I’ve got to have 50¢ for the subway. ” So there I am, vomitstink in the backseat, knowing I’ve got to go back to the garage and wash it myself and won’t be able to work for the rest of the night, and so I’m furious, and yet here’s this guy with his rent to pay, he’s poor, and he’s crying to boot. There on 7^th Avenue, just above the 12 year old pros, the transvestite hustlers, the winos begging for “coffee change,” in front of this chandelier palace hotel full of clothing buyers from Texas.

At that instant I wanted to hit someone. Most of us, I guess, have moments like that, and most of us handle it the way I did:  I took a deep breath and tried to forget.  Travis Bickle, the hero of the movie Taxi Driver, is someone who can’t forget, someone who finally acts on his rage and frustration. He shoots four people.

Bickle’s anger is something we often feel, and we often joke about his sort of revenge. A driver from Iota last Saturday night told me he wished he could hook up some wires and electrocute some of his passengers. The biggest trouble with the movie is that Bickle’s reasons are all wrong. There’s not much real taxi driving life in the film.

Taxi Driver begins with “Honest Harry” the notorious bribe-taking dispatcher at 57^th Street Garage (see last month’s HOT SEAT). When “Honest Harry” hired Bickle, a Vietnam Vet (played well by Robert De Niro), without demanding a payoff, I knew that a lot of the details of ordinary hacking were going to get lost in the movie.

It cuts out 2/3 of what aggravates us – passengers and traffic – and focuses entirely on the rotten street life of 8^th Avenue. Filth and corruption drive Bickle crazy.

So here is a driver who never gets stiffed, never sits in traffic, never dies at JFK, never gets held up, never worries if his bent front wheel is going to come off on the Williamsburg Bridge, rarely even notices his passengers.

There’s an awareness that more than the partition separates us from the backseat – the Lindsay-type presidential candidate treats Bickle like a nonperson or maybe just a leper – but basically the movie says that this driver is just lonely and crazy and wants to make contact with someone even if he has to kill them. Sure, hacking can be lonely, but who wants to associate with the rick fucks who try to treat us like their chauffeurs?

It’s not loneliness when your passenger insists, with that nauseating upper class accent, that you make a u-turn on 57^th during rush hour, and then stiffs you for being “impertinent” enough to refuse.  It’s upper-class contempt for working people. The rich liberal candidate things Bickle is dirt.

So Bickle, lonely and insane, decides to wipe out evil and make himself “somebody.” It’s all too simple. Our lives are richer, our hatreds more complex than this movie shows, and if, for once, Hollywood has shown this real complexity that ordinary people live, then Taxi Driver would have been a much better movie.

School for taxi drivers

Here’s a link to an article from today’s NY Times on a school for cabbies. It made me think about who who drives taxi nowadays. And it made me proud that I can still figure out the cross streets for an Avenue address in the Manhatten grid.

If the short link doesn’t work, try the longer link below.

http://nyti.ms/wOi35s

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/nyregion/at-this-school-the-tutor-speaks-cabby.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Teacher%20speaks%20cabby&st=cse

Life after taxi. Amsterdam.

First of all, a huge thank you to the folks who got this started. Apart from the traffic, the smog, the potholes, the bosses and an occasional robbery, my taxi years were wonderful. I can’t believe that was over 30 years ago! Now I live in Amsterdam, engaged to my Dutch partner Paul. I’ve kept in touch with just a few taxi colleagues over the years, and through them heard of a few others. I would love to hear more updated taxi stories—and old taxi stories too.

I direct a study abroad program in Holland for US students on sexuality and gender. In November I organized a public forum for my students on HIV/AIDS. Afterwards, I wrote some of my reflections on the epidemic to my students. Coincidentally, this also gives a thumbnail sketch of my time between taxi and Amsterdam.

Here is what I wrote to my students:
Thank you for your reflections following last week’s HIV/AIDS forum. Many were excellent, fascinating and quite moving. I thought I would share some of my own reflections.

I was really struck by the huge generational difference.  I don’t want to over-generalize, but for your generation of young Americans, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is a background issue. You are aware of the epidemic of course, but it is not a defining issue.  In a strange way, that is a sign of the successes of the AIDS movements, but at the same time, a cause for concern. Many youth are complacent about the epidemic, and that has led to worrisome increase in infection rates among youth in certain populations.

Freddie José, Fritz, Ronnie, George, Burr….  These are some of the dear friends I have lost to AIDS.  Freddie José was my first boyfriend. By the time he was sick, I was living in El Salvador. When he died, his mother sent me a very sweet note, but this was pre-internet days and the letter sat at the commune in Vermont for half a year until I came “home” for a visit. By then, she too was gone and I was not able to thank her.

Throughout many years of the epidemic, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), was the most persistent and creative activist voice confronting the government, the drug companies, and the gay community. Silence = Death.

In El Salvador in the 1990’s, I knew a number of people working against the epidemic. Some were Catholic nuns who counseled people to judge for themselves which was the worst sin: using a condom against the Pope’s command, or spreading this terrible disease.  They also showed that empowering women was more important than “simply” making condoms available. If someone has no voice to express her wishes about whether or not to have sex, or whether or not to use protection—then simply having condoms available is meaningless.  I knew others working with prisoners on AIDS prevention. And others working with youth. In a wonderful and bizarre collaboration, since there were no dildos available in the country for condom demonstrations, the prisoners in a workshop carved dildos that were then used in education programs with the youth. In a poor and small rural village, friends of mine work with a local committee to care for those already infected and prevent new infections.

Then I went to Africa for 3 years.  Namibia has one of the highest infection rates in the world, yet due to shame and ignorance, no one talks about it.  The obituaries were filled with notices of folks who died after a long illness, or who died of TB.  HIV was almost never mentioned. But there were dedicated activists working to open the discussion and demand action. Now, HIV+ folks in many southern African nations can receive the drug cocktails that control the progress of the disease.  Some see the choice between treatment or prevention.  But providing treatment is effective prevention. People who know their status are more conscious of their actions, and treatment also greatly reduces the viral load and contagiousness.

My Namibian colleagues and I organized a couple of public forums on the issue. Well over a hundred people came because they were hungry for info.  One forum was on “HIV/AIDS as a development issue.”  AIDS was claiming a disproportionate number of people in their most productive years and devastating the education system.  The disease was infecting the structure of society.  Another forum was “HIV/AIDS as a gender issue.” In Africa, AIDS is primarily a heterosexual disease where a majority of the HIV+ folks are female.  In addition, it is many times the grandmothers who end up caring for the children.

One of our panelists was the Minister of Health. When we were publicizing this event, I told her staff that I would like a quote from her for the press release saying something like, “The disease is the same, but the social effects are different for women and men.” The next day, the Minister wrote back and said, “that’s a good quote, go ahead and quote me saying that.”

To build on that quote, the disease is the same, but it manifests itself differently in different social settings and regions.  The “at-risk” populations are different in different places, and the ways to combat it must adapt. There have been some successes, but so much is still to do.

“No Leaders”

41 years ago this week I began driving a cab. It was 1971, just a few days after the new year and a couple of weeks after a two week strike that, though nominally called by the union, was clearly a joint effort with the fleetowners to force the city to raise the fares. The contract that came out of that strike, never ratified by the membership, lowered the commission rate for new drivers from 49% to 42% and allowed the bosses to take a dime off the top of every fare to pay for benefits which had previously been paid for out of their share.

The new contract and the fare increase were disastrous for taxi workers. The changes provoked widespread outrage and led directly to the tumultuous chair-throwing union meeting in April and the formation of the Taxi Rank & File Coalition, which announced itself in May with the first issue of The Hot Seat, in words that bear repeating today:

We are a growing group of taxi workers like yourselves. We are fighting together with all our brothers and sisters – young, old, black, white, and Spanish-speaking  – for a militant and democratic union.

We came together after the strike when we found a common cause in our outrage at the way our union had ignored our demands.

We are from all garages and all boroughs. Some of us have belonged to other rank and file groups; others among us have just begun to fight.

Many of us are the original organizers of Local 3036. We are angry now.  We are fighting to regain the old dream.

We have no officers and no “leaders.”  Our strength is in our membership. We have joined together, as our name suggests, to achieve a measure of justice and dignity for all taxi workers.

No officers and no “leaders.” When pressed (as the quotation marks around the word leaders suggest) I think we would have said that it’s not that we had no leaders; we just didn’t have anyone, or any group, in charge. Really, we considered everyone a leader, a potential leader, or a person who would step up and take leadership at one time or other. Still, one can’t help but notice the echo of Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street is a people’s movement. It is party-less, leaderless, by the people and for the people (OWS Statement of Autonomy). 

I’ve been thinking a lot about Occupy Wall Street lately – invigorated both by the sense of hope and possibility (which also recalled the early rank and file period) and by the movement’s refusal so far to limit itself by calling for this or that reform. I’m also trying to figure out how to connect and contribute. That’s my task for the next few months. I’m wondering what other folks are thinking.

Boss’s Tree, My Tree

This seems like a good time to share a poem written by Howard King. Howard drove at Dover Garage. He wrote this poem one winter and we handed it out on a flyer at the garage. I can’t remember what reactions it got in the garage, but I do know it must have resonated with a lot of drivers. The bosses had just announced that anyone taking off Christmas would either be suspended or fired. Howard died suddenly this past spring; he is deeply missed.

Boss’s Tree, My Tree

His tree screams green dollar bills,
fivers, tens, and brown cigars,
a SCREW THE WORKERS award
from Bosses for Better Democracy,
a plaque from his church “for his
devoted donations to Holy Mary,”
also, a toy checker cab, solid gold
except for the windows:  plastic diamonds
he can wind it up whenever
and the defogger works.

No dollar bills on our tree and no boss
playing golden games; Christmas lights,
good times, turkey, stories
of cabs and fares and bosses who never tip,
the long Christmas shift over, yawns
mixed with laughter, our Christmas bookings
gone to deck the boss’s tree:
more work tomorrow, no carefree holidays
until all checker cabs belong to us.

- Howard King