Congratulations.
May all you hard work and dedication pay off with not forty of fifty but THOUSANDS of drivers to stand beside you.
Then, perhaps the next time the drivers and medallion holders approach City Council, you will bring an offer they dare not refuse.
Wolfgang J. Weiss
PS: Don't forget your friends - everyone that ran in the election - because they have friends, too.
Leadership Talks with Bhairavi Desai (Archive)
November 18, 2005
"Bhairavi Desai, New York Taxi Workers Alliance"
Welcome to Leadership Talks with Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Questions and answers will appear below starting at 1 pm EST on Friday, November 18.
Leadership for a Changing World
Thank you for joining us for today's Leadership Talks with Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
Bhairavi, what motivated each of you to get involved in social justice work?
Bhairavi Desai:
I grew up in a family where both bread-and-butter and social justice were always on the table. My parents were socially conscious. I grew up poor and as I became older and I started to read about the inequities of the world and how inequities are structured and systematic, I also learned about resistance and movements and the power of people to make change. It’s that combination of recognizing exploitation and in that same breath, recognizing the ability of people to transform the world. And that really is, for me, the essence of social change work. And so as I was growing older, I became really politicized by the Palestinian movement as well as the Nicaraguan struggle. I grew up in the ‘80s at the time of Iran-Contra, and it never sat well with me that the US should be dictating to another country the policies and politics of another nation. Even as a 13-year-old, I knew it was wrong. When I would watch the news, I saw Nicaraguans and Palestinians fighting for justice, and they looked like myself and my family and my friends, and so that image really resonated with me. It very much shaped my confidence in social justice movements.
------------------------------------------------------
Detroit, MI
Would you define your organization as a service organization (in service for workers) or a worker-led one or a combination of both?
Bhairavi Desai:
We are a combination of both, which means we’re a union. To me, workers are the army of the oppressed. And services are like treating the wounded, services are to bring people back up on their feet so that they can be healthier and safer and stronger to wage the economic battles in the industry. And working people represent a power that is only paralleled by the wealthy in this society. They’re not in power, unlike the wealthy, but when organized, they have power. And especially in a society like this, where everything is about money and maximizing profits, you cannot change society without using the power of labor. And so we, as an organization, are a democratic mass-based membership union of taxicab drivers that are organizing to change their lives through changing working conditions, and through that, changing society as a whole. And by that I mean, when a group of workers for example, settle on a contract, the wages set by that contract become either the new floor or the new ceiling. We want to raise up the floor and destroy that ceiling.
------------------------------------------------------
Walla Walla, WA
How do you bring workers from different ethnic backgrounds whose home country politics may makes folks less apt to trust each other?
Bhairavi Desai:
First of all, we don’t deny people’s differences because denying differences means you deny histories. But we create dialogue and conversation to understand those differences and to determine which differences are superficial and created to divide and conquer versus which differences reveal the beautiful complexities of our world. Secondly, we build unity through a common language of struggle and a platform for change. That sounds so simple, but I think ultimately, it’s about our workers trusting the organization, and you best trust something that you have control over and that you can see and understand from the inside out. And so the organization becomes a point of commonality, and the working conditions become the point of unity. This is also the power and the beauty of class-based organizing because while certainly people who are marginalized by racism and xenophobia may experience class exploitation differently, the bottom line is all working people are exploited.
------------------------------------------------------
Milwaukee, WI
As far as I know, you're not a current or former taxicab driver. Do you think it's important for a worker movement to be led by workers rather than allies such as yourself?
Bhairavi Desai:
I think allies have a strategic role to play. I see myself as a representative and extension of the movement. But there’s no doubt that ultimately, it’s the taxi drivers who are the most important people because they hold both the knowledge of the industry as well as the ability to create change through their labor. I remember in 1998, when we had a strike, there were people from the administration who tried to divide the drivers from the organization because I’m not a taxi driver, and the membership saw that as a moment to divide the movement and came to my defense. And so our leadership body within the organization is the organizing committee of which I’m one member, and there’s one other non-driver, but everybody else is a taxi driver. And our general membership of 6,700 are all taxi drivers.
------------------------------------------------------
Portland, OR
You probably have a broader vision of social justice and equity that you bring to your work, while some or many of the workers/members may only be looking at improving their own personal situations. How do you help bring folks along to see the larger picture - or is that not part of your strategy?
Bhairavi Desai:
Actually, most of the drivers that I work alongside with also have a broader vision. Taxi drivers as a whole tend to be fairly political, they follow the news almost as if it’s part of their job, and they interact with people from all social and economic backgrounds. And given that most drivers, 90 percent, are third-world immigrants, they have lived first-hand, for example, the impact of globalization and forced migration. So within our organizing committee, whenever we work on an issue, whether it’s a living wage campaign or a privacy rights campaign, such as we’re working on right now, we examine what are the forces in power that have a stake in the issue and how will power be changed, depending on the results of our campaign. So I think for all of us, as individuals, and most especially as movements, we must see our work in the broader world, particularly at a time of globalization where on one hand, the world seems to get divided into smaller and smaller pieces, and on the other hand, it’s becoming one big global entity.
------------------------------------------------------
Philadelphia, PA
Why did you choose this community to serve?
Bhairavi Desai:
Growing up poor and South Asian, the most prominent image of working-class South Asians I could look up to were taxi drivers. And so I always had a great romantic respect and love for drivers. And so my heart was there long before my work was. And politically, I became frustrated by both the feminist movement and the general South Asian community-based movement because of a lack of respect for issues of class. So I wanted to organize specifically working people, but not in a traditional AFL-CIO union, which was also a source of political frustration because it had capitulated to capital decades ago and had such a history of racist and sexist politics inside various locals, which I saw growing up, in my mother’s experiences, in her union. So I really wanted to organize working class and poor people to create change through their power, which to me is reflected in their labor. And so taxi drivers are a perfect constituency. They are perfect agents of change because they are on the margins based on race, class, immigration, as nontraditional workers, as non-unionized workers, and at the same time, they are at the center of the economy because without them, New York City cannot run. It was that contradiction which needed to be resolved, and that can only be done through good organizing. And so they won over my heart and politically and intellectually, I found the work to be exciting. In 33 years of life, it’s the best decision I ever made.
------------------------------------------------------
New York, NY
The general 'stereotype' of South Asian communities is that women don't have the same power in society as men. As a female leader, have there been particular challenges you have recognized working in a traditionally male dominated community and workplace?
Bhairavi Desai:
It’s not just a stereotype, it’s the reality of patriarchy, not just in South Asia, but throughout the world. Within the South Asian context, feminists would say that while the West sees women as incapable of holding power, the Third World sees women as too inherently powerful and needing of control. When I first started, many people assumed that there was a man in the industry who had brought me to the work, either a father, a brother, or a husband. And for some people, when they saw there was no such man, they thought their role was to fill that position because, again, women need to be controlled. Or women need to be disciplined in order to hold on to positions of power. And so it’s definitely been a struggle with the drivers, the ownership, the regulators, and the media, but what allowed me to change the playing field and to make it a safer and effective ground for me on which I could work was through relationships with drivers. Most drivers, even while maintaining skepticism, they engaged me and gave me the benefit of the doubt that I could be an effective organizer. And once they recognized me as an ally, the other power structures followed. When I was a kid, my grandmother would always tell me that as much as things are stacked against you in this world, ultimately, your own belief in your work can change anything. Well, I would add to my grandmother’s wisdom that it’s both your own work and your belief in people and your belonging to the movement. These things are what allow us to work in social change on a daily basis. If I had a dollar for everyone who has said to me through the years that a young woman of color, second-generation immigrant, can neither change the world nor organize in an all-male industry, we would be a self-funded organization.
I also work with an amazing team of men in the Organizing Committee who have never made me feel less or incapable or unwanted or inadequate for any reason, including my gender. And through their example, other drivers and other men in the industry have had to follow.
------------------------------------------------------
Birmingham, AL
Have you built alliances with other worker organizations in NYC and elsewhere?
Bhairavi Desai:
We have allies of other worker organizations and community-based and youth social-justice groups in New York City and in other parts of the world. We learn strategies, tactics, more principled politics, and a better understanding of the power structure from engaging with other organizers. At the moment, we’re forming an international alliance of taxi workers. We have a sister group in Philadelphia; in Omaha, Nebraska; in Los Angeles; and in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and there are 15 other groups that are in the process of formation. We see that in the taxi industry throughout the country, there are common practices by the ownership. In essence, each city takes turns being a guinea pig in the experiment of worker exploitation. And again, one group of workers gets used to bring others into line. So the owners have a national group which meets to share strategies on union-busting and maximizing profits, and the only way to balance capital is through organized labor. And so we’re forming an international union so we can stop the experiments at their root before they spread. It’s also just simply heartening to meet other people that you can talk shop with and laugh with and sometimes even cry with.
------------------------------------------------------
New Haven, CT
If I understand correctly you have a very small staff, how do you build leadership within your organization?
Bhairavi Desai:
I don’t think staff and leadership are the same thing. Staff are the workers who are able to labor for the organization on a day-to-day basis. Our organizing committee, which is now 15 members, also outreach to the drivers on a day-to-day basis and participate in all the negotiations. And we hold almost daily conference calls on strategizing during the mobilization phase of a campaign. We also have an engaged general membership, where out of the 6,700, there are 500 core members with whom the Organizing Committee communicates on a regular basis. General members must vote on the demand of the campaign and must authorize the Organizing Committee to be able to make a strike call for any given campaign. And the Organizing Committee decides on the strategies and tactics day-to-day for the campaigns and the overall growth of the organization.
------------------------------------------------------
Chicago, IL
What advice do you have for other young activists? How can they prepare to be effective?
Bhairavi Desai:
First and foremost, love oppressed people and love the work that you do. Have faith that things can change and that each of us has a role. Be ready to work long hours, but know that your labor will not only be valued, but also blessed by people you may never even meet in your entire life. I remember last summer going to the airport taxi lot. It was a Saturday night, and I had gone there to outreach to the drivers. As I was walking to the lot, I thought, drivers will think either I’m really crazy or really unpopular, that I’m spending my Saturday night working at the lot. And each member I saw insisted that I sit with them inside their car, each person turned on the radio and insisted we only talk about life and not about the work. When I walked back to the bus stop to go home, I realized two things: One was that they gave me my Saturday night, and two, as long as that welcoming remained, I would never feel alone again. And so the love and the blessings that you get back from people for just speaking the truth and fighting for the most basic things is the most beautiful feeling, and it’s incomparable to what most people get from their work.
------------------------------------------------------
Leadership for a Changing World
Thanks again for a great discussion. We have time for one more question that we like to ask all of our guests.
How do you sustain yourself and your staff to prevent burnout?
Bhairavi Desai:
We have a really close Organizing Committee, very open organization. Just by having conversations about life in general allows you to remember that there’s always another day, and that the fight is never over. Little things, like celebrating everybody’s birthday and acknowledging when there is a loss in their life, sharing that grief, they are reminders that there is love and hope in the organization. And that becomes motivating to walk into the doors for another day. But with all that love and patience, you also have to have intense rage for the exploitation and the uncompromising sense that what is wrong must be fixed That’s what I learn from the drivers every day. It goes back to that question about the role of allies versus worker organizers. For me, when I see how much members of our Organizing Committee and active general members resist and transform and just handle with such amazing clarity, courage, and humor, it motivates me to give it my best for the organization and to be around them and learn from them and work with them with all of my heart.
------------------------------------------------------
Leadership for a Changing World
Thank you for joining us for today's Leadership Talks with Bhairavi Desai.
November 18, 2005
"Bhairavi Desai, New York Taxi Workers Alliance"
Welcome to Leadership Talks with Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Questions and answers will appear below starting at 1 pm EST on Friday, November 18.
Leadership for a Changing World
Thank you for joining us for today's Leadership Talks with Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
Bhairavi, what motivated each of you to get involved in social justice work?
Bhairavi Desai:
I grew up in a family where both bread-and-butter and social justice were always on the table. My parents were socially conscious. I grew up poor and as I became older and I started to read about the inequities of the world and how inequities are structured and systematic, I also learned about resistance and movements and the power of people to make change. It’s that combination of recognizing exploitation and in that same breath, recognizing the ability of people to transform the world. And that really is, for me, the essence of social change work. And so as I was growing older, I became really politicized by the Palestinian movement as well as the Nicaraguan struggle. I grew up in the ‘80s at the time of Iran-Contra, and it never sat well with me that the US should be dictating to another country the policies and politics of another nation. Even as a 13-year-old, I knew it was wrong. When I would watch the news, I saw Nicaraguans and Palestinians fighting for justice, and they looked like myself and my family and my friends, and so that image really resonated with me. It very much shaped my confidence in social justice movements.
-----------------------------------------------------
Detroit, MI
Would you define your organization as a service organization (in service for workers) or a worker-led one or a combination of both?
Bhairavi Desai:
We are a combination of both, which means we’re a union. To me, workers are the army of the oppressed. And services are like treating the wounded, services are to bring people back up on their feet so that they can be healthier and safer and stronger to wage the economic battles in the industry. And working people represent a power that is only paralleled by the wealthy in this society. They’re not in power, unlike the wealthy, but when organized, they have power. And especially in a society like this, where everything is about money and maximizing profits, you cannot change society without using the power of labor. And so we, as an organization, are a democratic mass-based membership union of taxicab drivers that are organizing to change their lives through changing working conditions, and through that, changing society as a whole. And by that I mean, when a group of workers for example, settle on a contract, the wages set by that contract become either the new floor or the new ceiling. We want to raise up the floor and destroy that ceiling.
-----------------------------------------------------
Walla Walla, WA
How do you bring workers from different ethnic backgrounds whose home country politics may makes folks less apt to trust each other?
Bhairavi Desai:
First of all, we don’t deny people’s differences because denying differences means you deny histories. But we create dialogue and conversation to understand those differences and to determine which differences are superficial and created to divide and conquer versus which differences reveal the beautiful complexities of our world. Secondly, we build unity through a common language of struggle and a platform for change. That sounds so simple, but I think ultimately, it’s about our workers trusting the organization, and you best trust something that you have control over and that you can see and understand from the inside out. And so the organization becomes a point of commonality, and the working conditions become the point of unity. This is also the power and the beauty of class-based organizing because while certainly people who are marginalized by racism and xenophobia may experience class exploitation differently, the bottom line is all working people are exploited.
-----------------------------------------------------
Milwaukee, WI
As far as I know, you're not a current or former taxicab driver. Do you think it's important for a worker movement to be led by workers rather than allies such as yourself?
Bhairavi Desai:
I think allies have a strategic role to play. I see myself as a representative and extension of the movement. But there’s no doubt that ultimately, it’s the taxi drivers who are the most important people because they hold both the knowledge of the industry as well as the ability to create change through their labor. I remember in 1998, when we had a strike, there were people from the administration who tried to divide the drivers from the organization because I’m not a taxi driver, and the membership saw that as a moment to divide the movement and came to my defense. And so our leadership body within the organization is the organizing committee of which I’m one member, and there’s one other non-driver, but everybody else is a taxi driver. And our general membership of 6,700 are all taxi drivers.
-----------------------------------------------------
Portland, OR
You probably have a broader vision of social justice and equity that you bring to your work, while some or many of the workers/members may only be looking at improving their own personal situations. How do you help bring folks along to see the larger picture - or is that not part of your strategy?
Bhairavi Desai:
Actually, most of the drivers that I work alongside with also have a broader vision. Taxi drivers as a whole tend to be fairly political, they follow the news almost as if it’s part of their job, and they interact with people from all social and economic backgrounds. And given that most drivers, 90 percent, are third-world immigrants, they have lived first-hand, for example, the impact of globalization and forced migration. So within our organizing committee, whenever we work on an issue, whether it’s a living wage campaign or a privacy rights campaign, such as we’re working on right now, we examine what are the forces in power that have a stake in the issue and how will power be changed, depending on the results of our campaign. So I think for all of us, as individuals, and most especially as movements, we must see our work in the broader world, particularly at a time of globalization where on one hand, the world seems to get divided into smaller and smaller pieces, and on the other hand, it’s becoming one big global entity.
-----------------------------------------------------
Philadelphia, PA
Why did you choose this community to serve?
Bhairavi Desai:
Growing up poor and South Asian, the most prominent image of working-class South Asians I could look up to were taxi drivers. And so I always had a great romantic respect and love for drivers. And so my heart was there long before my work was. And politically, I became frustrated by both the feminist movement and the general South Asian community-based movement because of a lack of respect for issues of class. So I wanted to organize specifically working people, but not in a traditional AFL-CIO union, which was also a source of political frustration because it had capitulated to capital decades ago and had such a history of racist and sexist politics inside various locals, which I saw growing up, in my mother’s experiences, in her union. So I really wanted to organize working class and poor people to create change through their power, which to me is reflected in their labor. And so taxi drivers are a perfect constituency. They are perfect agents of change because they are on the margins based on race, class, immigration, as nontraditional workers, as non-unionized workers, and at the same time, they are at the center of the economy because without them, New York City cannot run. It was that contradiction which needed to be resolved, and that can only be done through good organizing. And so they won over my heart and politically and intellectually, I found the work to be exciting. In 33 years of life, it’s the best decision I ever made.
-----------------------------------------------------
New York, NY
The general 'stereotype' of South Asian communities is that women don't have the same power in society as men. As a female leader, have there been particular challenges you have recognized working in a traditionally male dominated community and workplace?
Bhairavi Desai:
It’s not just a stereotype, it’s the reality of patriarchy, not just in South Asia, but throughout the world. Within the South Asian context, feminists would say that while the West sees women as incapable of holding power, the Third World sees women as too inherently powerful and needing of control. When I first started, many people assumed that there was a man in the industry who had brought me to the work, either a father, a brother, or a husband. And for some people, when they saw there was no such man, they thought their role was to fill that position because, again, women need to be controlled. Or women need to be disciplined in order to hold on to positions of power. And so it’s definitely been a struggle with the drivers, the ownership, the regulators, and the media, but what allowed me to change the playing field and to make it a safer and effective ground for me on which I could work was through relationships with drivers. Most drivers, even while maintaining skepticism, they engaged me and gave me the benefit of the doubt that I could be an effective organizer. And once they recognized me as an ally, the other power structures followed. When I was a kid, my grandmother would always tell me that as much as things are stacked against you in this world, ultimately, your own belief in your work can change anything. Well, I would add to my grandmother’s wisdom that it’s both your own work and your belief in people and your belonging to the movement. These things are what allow us to work in social change on a daily basis. If I had a dollar for everyone who has said to me through the years that a young woman of color, second-generation immigrant, can neither change the world nor organize in an all-male industry, we would be a self-funded organization.
I also work with an amazing team of men in the Organizing Committee who have never made me feel less or incapable or unwanted or inadequate for any reason, including my gender. And through their example, other drivers and other men in the industry have had to follow.
-----------------------------------------------------
Birmingham, AL
Have you built alliances with other worker organizations in NYC and elsewhere?
Bhairavi Desai:
We have allies of other worker organizations and community-based and youth social-justice groups in New York City and in other parts of the world. We learn strategies, tactics, more principled politics, and a better understanding of the power structure from engaging with other organizers. At the moment, we’re forming an international alliance of taxi workers. We have a sister group in Philadelphia; in Omaha, Nebraska; in Los Angeles; and in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and there are 15 other groups that are in the process of formation. We see that in the taxi industry throughout the country, there are common practices by the ownership. In essence, each city takes turns being a guinea pig in the experiment of worker exploitation. And again, one group of workers gets used to bring others into line. So the owners have a national group which meets to share strategies on union-busting and maximizing profits, and the only way to balance capital is through organized labor. And so we’re forming an international union so we can stop the experiments at their root before they spread. It’s also just simply heartening to meet other people that you can talk shop with and laugh with and sometimes even cry with.
-----------------------------------------------------
New Haven, CT
If I understand correctly you have a very small staff, how do you build leadership within your organization?
Bhairavi Desai:
I don’t think staff and leadership are the same thing. Staff are the workers who are able to labor for the organization on a day-to-day basis. Our organizing committee, which is now 15 members, also outreach to the drivers on a day-to-day basis and participate in all the negotiations. And we hold almost daily conference calls on strategizing during the mobilization phase of a campaign. We also have an engaged general membership, where out of the 6,700, there are 500 core members with whom the Organizing Committee communicates on a regular basis. General members must vote on the demand of the campaign and must authorize the Organizing Committee to be able to make a strike call for any given campaign. And the Organizing Committee decides on the strategies and tactics day-to-day for the campaigns and the overall growth of the organization.
-----------------------------------------------------
Chicago, IL
What advice do you have for other young activists? How can they prepare to be effective?
Bhairavi Desai:
First and foremost, love oppressed people and love the work that you do. Have faith that things can change and that each of us has a role. Be ready to work long hours, but know that your labor will not only be valued, but also blessed by people you may never even meet in your entire life. I remember last summer going to the airport taxi lot. It was a Saturday night, and I had gone there to outreach to the drivers. As I was walking to the lot, I thought, drivers will think either I’m really crazy or really unpopular, that I’m spending my Saturday night working at the lot. And each member I saw insisted that I sit with them inside their car, each person turned on the radio and insisted we only talk about life and not about the work. When I walked back to the bus stop to go home, I realized two things: One was that they gave me my Saturday night, and two, as long as that welcoming remained, I would never feel alone again. And so the love and the blessings that you get back from people for just speaking the truth and fighting for the most basic things is the most beautiful feeling, and it’s incomparable to what most people get from their work.
-----------------------------------------------------
Leadership for a Changing World
Thanks again for a great discussion. We have time for one more question that we like to ask all of our guests.
How do you sustain yourself and your staff to prevent burnout?
Bhairavi Desai:
We have a really close Organizing Committee, very open organization. Just by having conversations about life in general allows you to remember that there’s always another day, and that the fight is never over. Little things, like celebrating everybody’s birthday and acknowledging when there is a loss in their life, sharing that grief, they are reminders that there is love and hope in the organization. And that becomes motivating to walk into the doors for another day. But with all that love and patience, you also have to have intense rage for the exploitation and the uncompromising sense that what is wrong must be fixed That’s what I learn from the drivers every day. It goes back to that question about the role of allies versus worker organizers. For me, when I see how much members of our Organizing Committee and active general members resist and transform and just handle with such amazing clarity, courage, and humor, it motivates me to give it my best for the organization and to be around them and learn from them and work with them with all of my heart.
-----------------------------------------------------
Leadership for a Changing World
Thank you for joining us for today's Leadership Talks with Bhairavi Desai.
