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Introduction
When Jon Bowdoin advanced the motion late on the afternoon of March 20th, 2007 proposing the creation of The International Taxi Workers Alliance, it was received by the delegates of taxi driver organizations from fourteen other North American cities with a cheer that reverberated through the halls of the Murphy Center in midtown Manhattan. The decision to create an international federation of taxi driver organizations came towards the end of a four day conference of taxi drivers/organizers hosted by the Taxi Workers Alliance of New York and Pennsylvania. The conference began on Sunday, March 18th with a call to “a common struggle that is historic and vital for our lives and for the American labor movement” from Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the NYTWA, who co-chaired the conference with Ronald Blount, President of TWA of Pennsylvania.

Conference attendants were also joined on the phone by delegates from Sydney, Australia and Pak Pathan, Pakistan. The 5,000 member Nepal Transport Workers Union sent a note of appreciation. A letter was also received from New Delhi, India, which expressed deep solidarity with the newly formed ITWA. In a letter of solidarity from the Atlanta Taxicabs Industry, President Rasaq Kasumu wrote: “Your dream, foresight and determination deserve commendation,” going on to express firm commitment to the international organization: “Even though we are unable to send official representative to the conference be assured that the association is in support of your efforts.”

With the formation of the International Taxi Workers Alliance (ITWA), organizers say taxi drivers from across the globe will have greater organization, resources, influence and ultimately, power. Common issues discussed during the conference included economics, safety, health care, workplace privacy, technology and industry courts and regulations. In the USA, drivers are classified as sixty times more likely to be killed on the job and eighty times more likely to be robbed. Drivers work 12 hour shifts under high stress conditions causing a range of problems including diabetes, blood pressure, renal failure, lower back collapse and right leg pain. Almost universally, the taxi trade is structured under a “leasing” system whereby drivers pay rental fees for the vehicle and related capital such as a medallion or dispatching radios. “We live under daily debt while the companies don’t have to pay for health care, retirement, or our salaries. Even if we’re sick or we’ve been injured on the job, we have to pay for the lease,” says Jerome Allen, President of the Detroit, Michigan Cab Drivers Association. “We have so many issues. By uniting together, we increase our chances of winning on all of them.”

The formation of the ITWA assumes even greater significance as over the last few years the taxi industry ownership and industry regulators have come together in their own national/international bodies. “The owners have their association, the regulators have theirs and now the drivers have a body that will stand up to them at the national and international stage. We cannot let them get away in this game or they will only make the lives of millions of taxi drivers across the world worse day by day,” said Ahmet Gulkan of the Toronto Coalition of Concerned Taxi Drivers.

“What this conference means is that immigrant drivers all over the land have decided that we are not going to stop now till we get everything that a dignified worker must get,” said Barb Kabrick, a former driver and current organizer from Spokane, Washington.

For Barb, who is a long-time safety advocate with the International Taxi Drivers Safety Council, this conference has “been my dream and it’s come true…They don’t expect us to organize each other in our own garages or cities, let alone across the world…In real terms, it means lives will be saved.”

“This is one of the first international labor unions to form in the past several decades,” says activist and ally Ron Scott of Detroit, MI. “And it is profound that workers further marginalized because of race and immigration are at the forefront of this movement.”

Conference guests included AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Executive Director Ed Ott of NYC’s 1-million member Central Labor Council, and labor veteran Bill Fletcher.

The International Taxi Workers Alliance will have its headquarters in New York City. Member groups will continue to hold telephone conference calls as they plan next year’s conference and further institutionalize the ITWA.

--From The International Conference of Taxi Workers Journal, Issue 1. March 18, 2007.