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Tiny Bhairavi Desai Unlikely Leader of New York City Cabbie Strike
he is the unlikely leader of New York City's cab drivers: A college graduate, a woman, barely 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, soft-spoken.
But as the city's two-day taxi job action headed toward its finish, Indian-born Bhairavi Desai reaffirmed her prominent role in the city's labor movement and her willingness to make bold moves on behalf of her membership in the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
``She doesn't rattle easy,'' said Ed Ott, head of the New York City Central Labor Council. ``That's the thing that's very interesting to me _ she does not rattle easy. Under extraordinary pressure, she keeps an even keel.
``She never raises her voice. She never swears. She's steady as a rock.''
Desai, 34, is a slight woman _ 5-foot-1 (1.55 meters), 110 pounds (50 kilograms) _ who co-founded the alliance in 1998, the same year the city's cabbies refused to drive in a historic one-day walkout over working conditions.
This time around, she organized a 48-hour work stoppage over the city's insistence that all cabs be fitted with new technology _ including global positioning systems and video screens that will allow customers to pay by credit card.
The cabbies are complaining that the GPS technology will allow Big Brother into their cabs, and that the credit card option will cut into profits by costing them a 5 percent fee on every transaction. The technology must be in place as the cabs come up for inspection starting Oct. 1.
The city has 13,000 yellow cabs and 44,000 licensed drivers. The alliance _ an advocacy group, not a union _ claims to represent about one-fifth of those cabbies.
The success of the strike that began Wednesday morning remained in dispute well into day two. City officials said 82 percent of the taxi fleet was on the road Thursday, while the ever-passionate Desai was proclaiming triumph.
``You know, the numbers can be spun as much as the opposition wants, but the reality is, the waiting lines speak for themselves,'' Desai said Thursday, referring to people forced to stand in line for taxis in midtown Manhattan and at LaGuardia Airport.
It is that attitude that made her one of 17 people recognized by the Ford Foundation in its 2005 Leadership for a Changing World awards, where she was among those cited for bringing ``not only concrete gains to their communities but a determination to stand for justice.''
Thu September 6, 2007 21:16 EDT
LARRY McSHANE Associated Press Writer NEW YORK
Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, pickets with the group near a taxi stand at Pennsylvania Station in New York on Thursday, Sept. 6, 2007. (AP Photos/Peter Morgan) |