Taxi!: Cabs and Capitalism in New York City

"New York City taxi drivers have the toughest of jobs, working twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week, for not much more than the minimum wage. The vast majority are lease drivers who, unable to afford the $300,000 for a taxi medallion, hire their cabs on a daily or weekly contract. If bad weather or traffic hits business, the burden is entirely theirs. To make matters worse, the Taxi and Limousine Commission and the New York Police Department vie with each other in imposing a get-tough approach on a largely immigrant workforce." "But, in recent years, yellow cab drivers have joined together to fight back. In 1998 twenty-four thousand went on strike to protest relentless harassment by Mayor Rudy Giuliani. And a forceful campaign led by their grassroots organization, the Taxi Workers Alliance, was critical in obtaining the recent fare hike, an increase that went largely to the drivers themselves." Biju Mathew, a longstanding organizer of the Alliance, draws extensively on interactions with the drivers themselves to tell the story of an industry that has come to typify the ruthless exploitation of modern business.

• Author
• Biju Mathew

• Format
• hardcover

• Pages
• 240

• Publisher
• New Press, The

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9781565848115

• Genres
• labor

• Release date
• 2005