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Founded in 1998, NYTWA is the 15,000+ member strong union of NYC yellow taxicab drivers. We fight for justice, rights, respect and dignity for the over 50,000 licensed men and women - with 25,000 steady drivers - who labor 12-hour shifts with little pay and no benefits or protection in the city's mobile sweatshop. Our members come from every community, garage, and neighborhood. We are the first non-collective bargaining agent member of a Central Labor Council in the USA, voted into NYC CLC in 2007. We are also founding members of the 30-city, 3-continent (and growing) International Taxi Workers Alliance.
The Department of Labor ranks taxi driving as the most dangerous job in the country, with drivers 60 times more likely to be killed and 80 times more likely to be robbed on the job than other US workers. Drivers face discrimination at the hands of the police, harsh regulations, and Taxi and Limousine Commission courts devoid of due process.
NYTWA fights campaigns for structural change in the industry and supports individual drivers through comprehensive advocacy/services. We build driver power with unity, action and a democratic organization. Our work overcomes obstacles of independent contractor organizing, a politically influential and consolidated ownership, and a regulatory agency absent of any public accountability or labor voice.
We are committed to a progressive, internationalist labor movement that stands in steadfast solidarity with workers' movements of the US and the world.
Victories
On May 13, 1998, NYTWA organized a strike of close to 40,000-licensed taxi drivers, one of the most massive acts of labor unrest in the USA. On September 5 and 6, 2007, NYTWA organized a 48-hour, city-wide strike that left the airport taxi lots stripped and the taxi garages overflowing with parked cabs.
Since our founding, NYTWA has increased drivers' incomes by 35%-45%, including the first-ever Living Wage standard for US taxi drivers in 2004. NYTWA's other victories include: successfully negotiating inclusion of taxi drivers for 9/11 federal disaster assistance, which garnered over $15 million in aid for drivers; recovering over $120,000 in lost income due to unlawful license suspensions; defending $300,000 in civil court claims by corrupt taxi brokers; changing numerous anti-worker policies and regulations governing the taxi industry; and providing discounted or pro bono legal, financial management, and health services to over 10,000 drivers directly per year.
NYTWA is the first non-NLRB union to be voted into a Central Labor Council in the USA—the New York City Central Labor Council, an over one million-strong labor coalition. We also recently became a member of the AFL-CIO and were granted a national charter! |
