Driving force behind NY cabbies

Desai, 26, is the face behind the Taxi Workers8217; Alliance, the most successful effort in years to organise New York8217;s yellow cab drivers, most of whom are South Asian immigrants like herself.

Just a year old, the alliance is still a fledgling group with 1,500 members in a work force of 41,000. But it has already pulled off the biggest taxi strike in city history.

8220;She8217;s a tremendous asset to the drivers,8221; said Michael Wishnie, a law professor at New York University who has worked with the drivers8217; group on immigrant rights. 8220;She8217;s very intelligent, very charismatic.8221;

8220;Shehas rightfully perceived that there are tremendous injustices because of the way the city has chosen to construct this industry,8221; he added.

As in most major US cities, New York cabbies are largely lease drivers, paying 80 dollars to 115 dollars a day to use a licensed cab. If they can8217;t work, say because of long lines at the taxi commission, they still pay.

Lease drivers typically work twelve hours a day, six or seven days a week, averaging 70 dollars a day after their lease fee. Most never succeed in buying a cab license, or medallion, currently selling for about 230,000 dollars.

Few people except immigrants will endure such brutal hours and poor pay. The drivers come from 90 or so countries, some 70 per cent from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Many of the others are Haitians, Latinos and Africans.

8220;We call this a sweatshop on wheels,8221; Desai said in an interview. 8220;We would like to have an investigation of the industry8230; and the only way to do this is to organise the voices of the workingindustry.8221;

8220;Taxi drivers are a very visible work force, yet politically they8217;ve been invisible for many years,8221; she said.

Long considered exploitative, lease driving was banned in New York in the 1930S. The city reintroduced it about 20 years ago, and it has almost completely replaced commission driving, in which a driver pays a percentage of the day8217;s take to the taxi8217;s owner rather than a set fee.

In the 1960s, cabbies formed a union. It so alienated drivers over the years, in part because of its failure to prevent the return of lease driving, that it essentially collapsed three years ago. Since then, except for the Taxi Workers8217; Alliance, drivers have organised only as ethnic-specific groups.

In her salwar kameez, Desai hardly looks the hard-bitten labour leader. Small, mild-mannered, she admits to being shy. Working the line at the taxi commission, she does more listening than talking as the drivers vent their frustration.

But she8217;s not afraid to speak her mind.

8220;You have to be veryaggressive when you do social change work,8221; Desai says. 8220;There8217;s love for the people you8217;re working for but an equal amount of rage for the conditions they are living in.8221;

Born in Bhadheli in Gujarat, Desai came to the United States with her parents when she was six. She grew up in predominantly white Harrison, New Jersey, where her mother works in a plastics factory and her father ran a grocery store until his retirement.

She earned a reputation as a rabble rouser while still in high school, leading protests against South African apartheid. In college, her causes were closer to home: the poor, immigrant women in her area.

Politics is a family tradition. Desai8217;s grandparents were active in the Indian independence movement and her father is 8220;very political and progressive.8221;

8220;I never had to grow up with parents saying, 8220;You have to become a doctor, lawyer, engineer,8221;8217; she said. 8220;I8217;ve never had that drilled in me.8221;

After graduating from Rutgers University with a bachelor8217;s degree in Women8217;sStudies, she linked up with the Lease Drivers8217; Coalition, a project of the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence, a New York advocacy group.

8220;I wanted to concentrate on building a mass organisation with poor people. Taxi drivers were the ideal constituency,8221; she said.

Over the next year, she spent 50 to 60 hours a week talking to drivers at garages, airports and gas stations, plowing through obstacles of language, culture and gender.

Desai, as fierce a feminist as she is labour leader, says she has experienced fewer come-ons and lewd remarks than she expected from an overwhelmingly male work force. When it happens, she doesn8217;t hesitate to take the offender to task.

8220;When you dismiss someone for their behaviour, you also dismiss their potential to improve,8221; she said.

Outside the taxi commission, Desai is popular even with drivers who don8217;t belong to the taxi workers alliance. None seem to mind that she doesn8217;t even drive. Like many New Yorkers, she relies on mass transit.

8220;I respect herbecause she works for humanity,8221; said Shemsher Malik, 50, from Pakistan.

Steve Seltzer, 68, a retired cabbie who for years was active in efforts to organise drivers, said Desai once asked if she could accompany him to a garage.

8220;The first thing you know she8217;s in the parking lot and she8217;s got 15 to 20 drivers gathered around her and she8217;s talking to drivers about the need to act, to get together,8221; he said.

8220;The thing that awed me was there was no disrespect shown. They were listening. They were attentive.8221;

Early last year, Desai and a handful of supporters broke with the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence to form the Taxi Workers8217; Alliance as a labour organisation.

The alliance got its first test a few months later when Mayor Rudolph Giuliani introduced 150 fines for discourtesy, instituted drug tests for drivers and dramatically raised penalties for driving violations.

The group called a strike and Desai campaigned tirelessly to make it happen. When dawn broke on the strike day last May,New York8217;s streets were strangely quiet. Even the Alliance was surprised by the turnout, estimated at all but a few hundred of the city8217;s 12,000 licensed yellow cabs.

It was the largest show of unity ever among cab drivers in New York, a phenomenal achievement, even if it didn8217;t stop the rules.

The Taxi Workers8217; Alliance is not a bona fide union. For that it would have to hold federally supervised elections. Still, it is trying to function like one, providing legal services and talking of setting up a health plan. Members pay dues, enabling Desai to finally collect a paycheck after months of relying on the generosity of friends.

Desai refuses to call herself the group8217;s leader, though she is the only paid person on the 16-member organising committee.

8220;People are so used to seeing these individual stars. I don8217;t see myself that way at all,8221; she said.

8220;I8217;m an organiser. I8217;m not interested in running for office. I8217;m obviously not making a lot of money. My vested interest is seeing a lot of otherpoor people gain a sense of respect and justice.8221;