FAIR WARNING ALL WHO READ THESE POSTINGS - - -
YOU ARE NOT TO REPUBLISH ANY OF THEM WITHOUT RESPECTING CLAIMS OF COPYRIGHT PRIVILEGES OF CERTAIN OF THOSE WHO POST - ESPECIALLY THE MANAGEMENT OF THE CHICAGO DISPATCHER.
____________________________________________________
Barb - and others:
It is noted in passing that Big George is deleting postings from his "Forum". Having made a couple this morning - specifically a response to the situation of the dispute between the cab owner and the cab driver, I note it was wiped out --- erased.
I had suggested the driver sue the owner for his damages for breach of contract as a small claim with a six person Jury demand. Using Illinois Supreme Court Rules 281 to 289, the matter could be filed for next to nothing in court costs, and there's a lawyer out there who would draw the necessary complaint as a volunteer. The cab owner, if incorporated, would have to hire a lawyer to represent his corporation under the Illinois Supreme Court Rules and the Code of Civil Procedure, a prohibitively expensive choice.
I wonder why George would delete a posting like that? Could it be because he has some conflict of interest? Is it because the cab owner is someone who pays big bucks for ads in the "Chicago Dispatcher"?
Of course, this "Forum" is George's, and he can edit it as he likes. But at least those in the know should be aware of his manipulation of taxi news in much the same fashion as Hearst used to do it in his rags - or as the McCormack family did it in Chicago with its "Tribune" for over a century.
My expectation is that you will not see further postings by me on the George Forum - the only way a lawyer can post is evidently by paying George to advertise for legal services evidently. Because I'm not trying to solicit business by paying him to toot my horn, my thoughts become superfluous to him - or they serve as some sort of threat.
Donald Nathan
In a message dated 12/16/2007 12:11:21 P.M. Central Standard Time, george@chicagodispatcher.com writes:
Barb:
The problem is that I have asked Mr. Tang to simply direct people to the CabMarket.com site to view my work. That way everyone can comment and read everyone else's comments.
The last time I addressed this very issue to Mr. Tang, a couple of months ago, I wrote him the following, "Feel free to reference any of the stories we write as you like by using the title and an accurate description of the story. We just want them to read the story on the CabMarket.com site so that everyone can have a chance to share their opinions and read those of others."
Mr. Tang replied by saying, "MY SINCERE APOLOGY TO GEORGE AND THE CHICAGO DISPATCHER!"
He also said, "I will be more careful next time."
I wanted to address this issue directly with Mr. Tang but Mr. Tang ran straight to his big brother attorney, as he did this time.
At the time, Don Nathan said, "FORGIVE HIM FOR ANY UNINTENDED VIOLATION OF YOUR COPYRIGHT. I AM SURE HE WON'T DO IT AGAIN."
Well he did it again. So what do you do when you're caught again, doing the same thing that you promised you wouldn't do again? You make excuses. Pathetic.
In solidarity,
George Lutfallah
Chicago Dispatcher
Visit www.CabMarket.com for all your taxi industry needs!
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: What did I do wrong?
From: "Barb"
Date: Sun, December 16, 2007 10:06 am
To: "George Lutfallah"
Cc:
Did Mr. Tang post "the product of your labor" claiming himself to be the author? Surely he would not want anyone to think that he himself wrote it! And if he simply passed it along with due credit to you, then what's the problem? Don't you want it to be read? I've read your stuff myself, so I can totally understand the embarassment THAT could cause!
Barb
----- Original Message -----
From: George Lutfallah
To: Demerdard@aol.com
Cc: george@cabmarket.com ; tang11111@hotmail.com ; barbj2799@comcast.net ; NYTWA1@aol.com ; Blount86@aol.com ; Chicdiane7@aol.com ; hamid@latwa.org ; Harrowgate@aol.com ; Jim4Safety@aol.com ; JKLEEMAN@aol.com ; junningz@sbcglobal.net ; kingsleyliu3@hotmail.com ; melissacci@yahoo.com ; chinatownmike@yahoo.com ; romolaw3@sbcglobal.net ; naim23@gmail.com ; psampat@afsc.org ; aaajiji@hotmail.com ; zybarwulf@comcast.net ; qqqz@worldnet.att.net ; bestpartition@verizon.net
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 8:55 AM
Subject: RE: What did I do wrong?
Mr. Tang:
Don't worry. I don't plan to sue you. I was just asking you, again, to stop lifting my work but you seem to feel entitled to the product of my labor. Since you won't respect my request, I will find another way to address the problem. I'm sorry to learn that you can't afford a better lawyer.
Regards,
George Lutfallah
Chicago Dispatcher
Visit the Discussion Forum at CabMarket.com!
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: What did I do wrong?
From: Demerdard@aol.com
Date: Thu, December 13, 2007 11:16 pm
To: tang11111@hotmail.com, barbj2799@comcast.net, NYTWA1@aol.com,
Blount86@aol.com, Chicdiane7@aol.com, hamid@latwa.org,
Harrowgate@aol.com, Jim4Safety@aol.com, JKLEEMAN@aol.com,
junningz@sbcglobal.net, kingsleyliu3@hotmail.com, melissacci@yahoo.com,
chinatownmike@yahoo.com, naim23@gmail.com, psampat@afsc.org,
aaajiji@hotmail.com, zybarwulf@comcast.net, qqqz@worldnet.att.net,
bestpartition@verizon.net
Cc: george@chicagodispatcher.com, george@cabmarket.com
George - I am volunteering to represent Yi Tang in respect to your concern expressed about an e-mail he evidently sent out to a few people earlier today. Rest assured that each and every one of those people had read any material that may have appeared in your Chicago Dispatcher before Tang may have sent out the e-mail. To the extent any of them reread your copyrighted material - most unlikely did this happen - no damage was done to you that would be cognizable in any court action.
We have a saying in the law: ****um absque injuria. It means you may have suffered damage, but it was without injury.
Apart from any want of damage, I assure yo u my client is in no position to pay any judgment you might win against him. Any victory against him would be utterly pyrrhic.
I am happy to discuss the matter with you or any lawyer you might retain to represent you or your publication.
Donald Nathan, Esq.
630-758-1500
In a message dated 12/13/2007 8:49:32 P.M. Central Standard Time, tang11111@hotmail.com writes:
Please do not copy George's work, if I am the source of any copy right violations.
He is not happy about it, and I don't know if I have ever done anything worng.
Yi
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: tang11111@hotmail.com
To: george@chicagodispatcher.com
Subject: RE:
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:11:18 -0600
Please be specific... What did I do wrong?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:09:01 -0700
From: george@chicagodispatcher.com
Subject: RE:
To: tang11111@hotmail.com
Don't act stupid.
Regards,
George Lutfallah
Chicago Dispatcher
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE:
From: Yi Tang
Date: Thu, December 13, 2007 7:07 pm
To: George Lutfallah
What happened?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:06:15 -0700
From: george@chicagodispatcher.com
Subject:
To: tang11111@hotmail.com
Mr. Tang:
I have asked you politely in the past not to copy my work and send it out. Why have you not respected that?
Regards,
George Lutfallah
Chicago Dispatcher
Eternal Fascism:
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
By Umberto Eco
(Writing in New York Review of Books, 22 June 1995, pp.12-15. Excerpted in Utne Reader, November-December 1995, pp. 57-59.)
(The following version follows the text and formatting of the Utne Reader article, and in addition, makes the first sentence of each numbered point a statement in bold type. Italics are in the original.)
(For the full article, consult the New York Review of Books, purchase the full article online; or purchase Eco's new collection of essays: Five Moral Pieces.)
In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
* * *
1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.
Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but is was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice;" such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.
Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.
3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.
Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.
4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.
In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.
5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.
Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.
That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.
7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.
This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.
8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.
9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.
Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.
10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.
Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people in the world, the members or the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.
11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.
In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.
12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.
This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.
13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the official language of what he called Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.
* * *
Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.
Umberto Eco (c) 1995
Please allow me to bring the attachment back to the cabmarcket.com
___________________________________
What a lie?
From: Yi Tang (tang11111@hotmail.com)
Sent: Thu 12/13/07 5:40 PM
To: barbj2799@comcast.net; nytwa1@aol.com; blount86@aol.com; chicdiane7@aol.com; demerdard@aol.com; hamid@latwa.org; harrowgate@aol.com; jim4safety@aol.com; Jkleeman@aol.com; junningz@sbcglobal.net; kingsleyliu3@hotmail.com; melissacci@yahoo.com; chinatownmike@yahoo.com; naim23@gmail.com; psampat@afsc.org; aaajiji@hotmail.com; Wolfgang J. Weiss (zybarwulf@comcast.net); qqqz@worldnet.att.net; bestpartition@verizon.net
Hello, everyone?
Have you ever paid any attention for what George Latfallah said?
We should all know that the lease taxi drivers in Chicago are employees to the taxi companies (even the ex-Commissioner Schoenberg pointed out many years ago). Despite of numerous court rulings on this subject, Mr. Latfallah is still selling his "independent contractor" craps. Did he ever try to give anyone a single NLRB's ruling on the status of taxi drivers? Chicago is not NYC.
Everyone wants to have a "union", but who has ever tried in his own work place? Not everyone is in favor of a union, and it is up to the majority votes from workers within the same work place. Sometime, a union may not be the bestn interest to everyone in ever work place.
As far as I know, driving a taxi has never been the first choice in life!
You can see the corruptions in any government agencies, why there would be any differences in the class of taxi drivers? Nothing comes free, and you don't always get what you paid for.
Anyone wants to write something about it?
May be we should all try not talking too much on the cell phones while diving, and pay more attentions on the road ahead?
Yi
___________________________________________
From the Chicago Dispatcher, December 2007
It's a Wonderful Life
Organizing Chicago Taxi Drivers
“We need a union,” drivers would tell me as I would walk through the O'Hare lot passing out the Chicago Dispatcher five years ago. Drivers were saying that when I first started driving a cab 15 years ago. They're saying the same thing now.
But I've learned that when cabdrivers say they want a union, what they usually mean is that they want someone to help them with their problems. In other words, cabdrivers want empowerment. That's it. It's not about unionizing or organizing. What they generally want is some avenue to solve their problems so that they don't feel like they're being pushed around all the time without being able to push back.
But unfortunately most cab driver groups that emerge with the intent of solving driver problems fail or are otherwise ineffective. And they invariably fail for the same reasons.
The main reason is that cabdrivers can't legally organize in the traditional sense. A traditional union consists of employees and has legal protection once they unionize. They can compel their members to pay dues. Cabdrivers are not considered employees. They are considered independent contractors. They can't take a vote to unionize and then force every worker to join if they get a simple majority of the votes.
And since they are considered independent contractors and can't unionize, the tools of a union are not necessarily effective tools for taxi drivers. Take strikes for example. Since taxi drivers have no employer, the only people they really hurt when they try to strike are themselves and their customers.
Even if a strike is pulled off with a modicum of success, it can't be sustained before drivers just go back to work or hacks sitting on the sidelines start driving again because of the opportunity to make a quick buck. The city knows this and can always wait out a taxi driver strike. Strikes only serve symbolically; the only thing to really gain is enough public awareness so as to embarrass the city and prove to be enough of an annoyance that the city feels the need to address some issues to pacify and reassure the public's perception - not necessarily for the purpose of satisfying the drivers' needs.
The more the city needs cabs, the more cabdrivers will likely want to work to make money, which means the more cabdrivers will cheat, which means the less effective the strike. Economics dictate that taxi driver strikes will be short lived.
That's why strikes don't work. A strike is an effective tool when you have an employer because your employer is losing money and both the employees and the company know it. But they don't work as well when your employer is yourself. The strike this past July was successful in terms of getting participation among many drivers but it was a Pyrrhic victory, because not a lot has changed and drivers still don't have a fare increase. However it did get attention, whether the city and general press want to admit it or not, and it has raised awareness among drivers that something can and should be done to address their problems.
Another reason cab driver organizations tend to fail is that there is no intrinsic unity of cabdrivers. If a man is being abused because of the color of his skin, he has to deal with that problem in one way or another. He has no choice. If a cabdriver isn't satisfied with his situation, he can solve that problem by becoming a janitor or a lawyer or a newspaper publisher. That's why cabdriver rallies at City Hall almost never work. Rallies work when you are backed into a corner and have no alternative but to fight your way out - not when it's a lot easier to simply do something else or to keep your mouth shut and continue working since you can leave the industry whenever you want if you think things will get much worse. When drivers don't show up for these rallies, the reason is often attributed to fear of retribution by the city or driver apathy. But these aren't the reasons. These are merely symptoms of the real reason, which is that taxi drivers generally have no real loyalty to the profession and they have little incentive to develop any loyalty.
There are lots of other factors, but I'll leave it at those two for now.
So, given these two major constraints, how do you organize taxicab drivers?
What I'm going to say might upset some people who have been working very hard lately to organize taxi drivers. Let me assure you that the purpose of this is not to discourage anybody from working to improve the conditions of taxi drivers. The purpose is to help people focus in the right direction so that they don't spend the next 20 years of their lives futilely trying to create an organization of drivers in a way that simply won't work.
All too often, taxi driver groups and those who say they want to help them will misdirect their efforts. They will start in the usual and necessary way by creating an organizing committee and will even elect a president. But that president will have no real authority to act on anybody's behalf. And that president will have no money. They'll realize they need money to offset the sacrifice they're making by not driving their cabs. Otherwise they won't be able to take off very much time at all, especially when the realities of life set in, when the rent is due and the kids have to be fed. So they'll take up a collection from cabdrivers.
“Hey, cabdrivers should give, right? We're doing this for their benefit and they trust us, right?”
Wrong.
Drivers won't give money. Oh sure, a few will at first. But after a while, they'll stop giving and they'll start wondering what their money was spent on and they'll have nothing to show for their investment. Then they'll start wondering about the organizers themselves and the committee members, even if they were close friends before, and they'll wonder why they don't see them driving as much any more. They'll start to question if it is because the organizers are working for the betterment of cabdrivers or if it is because they are sitting at home, living on the money drivers donated. And when drivers who have contributed don't start seeing results, and the collectors start coming around again, these drivers don't give money as easily anymore and they start to look at the organizers with contempt. The leaders are seen as ineffective, at best. Some will think they are corrupt. The rumors start to fly. And no matter how much integrity the organizers have, they won't be able to eliminate the doubt and mistrust that has already festered.
But whether or not the organizers collect money from drivers, suppose that every cabdriver in the city of Chicago said they support that committee. What good will that do? The verbal support of cabdrivers is meaningless. Just because every cabdriver says they support you, you can't compel them to pay dues, as you would if you were an actual union. You can't compel them to strike. You can't compel them to write letters. They'll tell you they're going to attend your meetings but most won't. They'll tell you they'll strike, but most won't. They'll tell you they'll rally behind you, but most won't. You can't compel them to do anything at all.
So the president of the taxi drivers organization will not be listened to by the city in any greater capacity than any other taxicab driver or general citizen off the street. Actually, probably even less because the city might not want to lend any credibility to the organization by meeting with the president or its committee. Now is the place where somebody who doesn't understand Chicago politics to say, “Hey man, they work for us. They have to do what we tell them to do. Power to the people. Solidarity, my brothers and sisters!” This is Chicago. Wake up.
So the problem is that when cabdrivers try to organize in a traditional way, without the legal avenue in which to do it, they are bringing a knife to a gunfight and end up stabbing each other in the back. They will find themselves spending more time trying to organize and fighting over control and meaningless victories than on actually empowering themselves or fellow drivers. Groups split up, unity is broken and everything fizzles away.
Then a new generation of cabdrivers will emerge who will be naïve enough to believe that something can be done by “organizing” and will make exactly the same mistakes. Even if they have some knowledge of history, they'll believe that they can do it better or they will mistakenly believe that they have the support of the drivers or that some minor change they make in their organizing rules and policies will make all the difference in the world. It won't. History will repeat itself. And the cycle will never be broken so long as taxi drivers operate under a “workers rights” mentality, when everybody else with any kind of authority sees them as business owners.
Am I saying that cabdrivers can't organize? No. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I am saying is that taxi drivers have basically one of two choices: They can either work to change their classification from independent contractors to employees, or they can accept that they are independent contractors and use those tools which are already available to them. They can accept that they are business people who have their own means of addressing problems that are very different from - and in some ways more effective than - the tools employees use.
Changing the classification from independent contractor to employee would be difficult and would be met with a lot of resistance from owners, insurance companies and drivers themselves. A lot of drivers like the benefits of being independent contractors because they don't want a boss and they want to work when they want. Go ahead, try this: Ask a driver what she or he thinks about working for someone now and being given a set schedule about when to drive, eat lunch and take breaks. See how many of them like this idea. So for now I'll assume that the legal status of taxi drivers will remain as independent contractors and will discuss empowering taxi drivers accordingly.
But there's a problem that needs to be addressed right now.
A spectre is haunting Chicago. There are people out there who believe that they are still fighting a war that began in Russia in 1917. They think you're a victim and they're treating you like one. They think you should be taken care of and that they are the ones to take care of you. They are playing by rules from a playbook that was destroyed along with the Berlin Wall in 1989. They spew Socialist rhetoric that few people take seriously anymore but that may sound comforting to a some uninformed and frustrated taxi drivers.
Let's get right into it. They say things like, “No lease-cap increase!” But why? Why do they say this? Why is this near the top of their list?
Are you in favor of a lease cap increase? If you are a lease driver reading this, you might immediately say no. You might think that, especially if you always plan to be a lease driver and have an employee's mentality. But remember, you are not an employee. You are a business owner. You don't have to be a lease driver for the rest of your life.
You are like a larvae in a cocoon when you are a lease driver. The cocoon is the owner of the cab. You don't have to stay in the cocoon forever. You can break out of the cocoon and become a butterfly, when you buy a medallion. And if you survive and flourish, you can even create your own cocoon one day to help other larvae become butterflies.
But some people want you to stay in that cocoon. Who? There's two types of people who want you in that cocoon forever. One is the cab owners. It's not for any bad reason. It's just that you are their customers and they don't want you to leave them, just as you don't want your passengers to find other means of transportation. If you become an owner yourself, you cease to be their customer and you become their competitor.
The other group consists of misguided Socialists who don't understand this business and think that they know how to take care of you better than you do. They don't see you as having any potential. You are inept. You are poor. You have no station in life. You need to be coddled and taken care of because you can't do anything yourself. They want you in that cocoon. And they tell you not to worry because they're going to make sure that cocoon always keeps you nice and snug by fighting to keep lease rates down. Now just drift off to sleep and don't pay attention. We'll take care of you. Shhh.
Let's get back to the lease cap issue. Are you in favor of an increase? If I were a lease driver, which I am, I would not be. But if I ever buy my own cab, I would be sympathetic to lease drivers, but it wouldn't make much of a difference for me personally because I would no longer be paying a lease. Instead I would be paying a medallion and car loan. I would start to understand the hardships owners face. Once I start leasing my cab out when I want to take a little time off, I may start to feel the constraint of the lease cap because now my income is limited and I have bills to pay. Then I buy another cab, and another one and I lease these cabs out to drivers and that is my only source of income. Now I start thinking that a lease cap increase isn't such a bad idea. Then the city imposes more rules that are going to cost me money as an owner, but they're saying to me that I can't raise my prices to pay for these requirements. So I refinance my medallions to cover the costs of new vehicles and their required equipment. The prices of medallions have been driven up, yet I'm no better able to service those loans than I was before. I know how I can get more money. I'll just take out a bigger loan on my medallion since I have equity in it now.
Are you starting to feel the choke?
What the heck happened? I'm just a cabdriver who tried to build myself up, but I'm being held down by city policies and financiers who control medallion prices. So now what do I do? I guess I have to sell out to the big boys before my medallions are foreclosed. Hey, that's business. Right? I seem to think that I've heard that before.
So at the end of the day, because of people supporting the artificial suppressing of the lease cap, the little guys are forced out of the market and the biggest guys are getting bigger. What ends up happening when all the dust settles is that you have huge fleets and lots more lease drivers. That’s good for your “Friends” at the American Friends Service Committee, who say they want to help you organize with their Taxi Workers Organizing Project. There will be more pathetic workers who need to be protected. Maybe they can call their connections on the East Coast and get more funding now. “Hey boss. Bad news. The problem’s getting worse. This project is going to take longer than we thought. Oh, and send more money.”
If they actually fix the problem, they lose their jobs.
Back to my scenario. Drivers have gotten a few meter increases, the financiers are getting more money from the increased loan I have to repay, but my income as an owner is still fixed. So now my incentive to grab a piece of the American dream as an owner has been hurt.
So, taxi organizers who claim to be Friends of drivers are complicit partners in keeping lease drivers as lease drivers, whether that was their intention or not. And their policies, if adopted, assure the consolidation and growth of the largest fleet operators. Congratulations.
Oh, and you'll see even more of the smaller and medium sized guys gobbled up soon because lease payments aren't keeping up with what they owe the finance companies or they simply don't make enough money to put up with the nonsense. They'll take their capital elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Reyes and Alderman Allen have decided to sit on their hands and watch all of this go down. They’re going to let the market work. Well the market’s not working. The city doesn’t let the market work when it comes to rates of fare. The city doesn’t let the market work when it comes to lease rates. The city doesn’t let the market work when it comes to how many medallions are on the street. But the city wants to let the market work when it comes to medallion prices?
How do the biggest guys stay afloat? Don't they make their money from lease payments as well? Yes. But unlike the smaller and medium sized players, some of the biggest fleets own or work very closely with finance companies. They themselves are basically the lenders who can then rely on interest payments, which have no cap, to get around the lack of funds they receive from lease payments. They might not even mind the suppressed lease cap for now as long as the little guys continue to crumble. But once the market is cornered, they will push the city for a lease cap increase. And when that time comes, then the city will miraculously decide to give them one.
Who’s to blame for this? You can’t really blame the financiers if they’re playing within the rules. That would be like blaming a driver for not working in the neighborhoods when there’s a big convention at McCormick Place.
The blame for this rests on the city and on the lobbyists who are working against the interests of drivers and owners when they’re supposed to be on our side.
But let's turn back specifically to organizing. Organizing taxi drivers on a social level will fail. That's right. It will. It will fail for the reasons already mentioned. Cabdrivers are in it for the money, just as cab owners are. Most taxi drivers don't define themselves as taxi drivers. If you see a taxi driver in a store and you ask him what he is, he will probably tell you four or five things before he says he's a taxi driver. He might say, “I'm Muslim.” He might say, “I'm African.” He might say, “I'm short.” Taxi drivers generally don't define who they are by what they do. They define who they are by, well, who they are.
So how can taxi drivers be organized? If they can't be organized legally as employees and they won't organize themselves socially because they have no intrinsic unity, how can they be organized?
The best way to organize cabdrivers is economically. People who truly want to empower drivers should help them become owners of taxicabs and even affiliations. That's how drivers develop business skills. That's how they break out of the cocoon.
There's a saying, “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.”
For drivers to be empowered, they need to be taught to fish for themselves. They need to be helped and encouraged to be owners of their own medallions. They need to have the opportunity to buy equity in their affiliations.
These ideas aren't new. They aren't imaginary. They are already out there and working. John Henry Assabill is the president of the Gold Coast Cab Association, which is an economic organization. This association was set up so that the drivers would own the association and share in the profits and losses of its operations.
If the Friends actually cared about drivers and think the lease cap should never be raised, why don't they buy medallions, buy the vehicles and equipment and lease the cabs out to drivers for less than market? If they think that owners are making such huge profits in spite of their own loans and other expenses, why don’t the Friends buy medallions and charge a lot less on the lease that the current market is making? Surely if they believe that owning a cab is so profitable, they could buy medallions, lease them for less and still make big profits and then buy more medallions. Why not just buy medallions for drivers? I'm sure they could get the financing to do it. I can even think of a couple of salaries they could free up to help do this. But they won't do it. Cab owners are evil and you need to be protected from them - not become one yourself.
The moment you, as a lease driver, start showing any signs of success by buying a cab, you become a threat to them. How dare you leave the cocoon!
In the words of Ronald Reagan, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.”
But let's forget about them and get back to organizing cabdrivers. What cabdrivers need if they want to organize is a union. No, not an employee union. A credit union, financed by cabdrivers. Cabdrivers shouldn't just borrow money to buy medallions; they should also lend money to other drivers who want to buy medallions too. And they should be compensated for this if they have no religious or other objection to earning interest on loans. Drivers do have the ability to be the owners, lessors, lesses, borrowers and lenders of this industry. This would actually build loyalty to the profession because drivers would be investing in the industry - investing in themselves, really. The charter of this credit union could set aside money to be used for political purposes. Plans could be drawn up to help drivers attain benefits through the credit union.
We can discuss this further on CabMarket.com in the Discussion Forum and I’ll dicuss other ways taxi drivers can organize and otherwise empower themselves.
In the classic Christmas movie “It's a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey operates a building and loan for the residents of Bedford Falls. He helps the people of the town stay out of old man Potter's slums by helping them invest in each other to buy their own homes. George didn't sell out to Potter and he didn't think the best way to solve the people's problems was by keeping Potter's rent low.
Merry Christmas.
George Lutfallah, C.L. #79310
Mr. Tang,
Cab drivers are self-employed, they don't work for the company. Cab drivers only lease.
You are very stupid, so why don't you go back to China where the hell you come fom you son of a ****** I hate your louszy guts.
Mr. Faarax
ok,
mr. faarax,
this kind of language and discourse is totally and completely uncalled for. i demand you apologize to mr. tang for such egregious behavior. it is NOT ACCEPTABLE and unprincipled.
i hope that others will chime in to demand from everyone here that we maintain a level of respectful and principled political discourse. lets let the ideas we have fight it out if we disagree, and not stoop to personal attacks.
jb
At the end of the day, when we are done bad mouthing and backstabbing each other, when we have completely destroyed one another, where are we left?
It's not necessary that we like anything about each other but, we should all respect one another at the very least.
We'll never be able to make any progress if this disrespect and prejudice for each other continues.
My name is Faarax J. My last posting on this forum involved a fair and spirited discussion with Mr. Budzynski and Mr. Foulks regarding cabdriver leadership and organization. I have not posted since.
Now I come on here and see two postings with my name attached to them. I would like the person or persons responsible for this to come forward and apologize on this forum for using my identity to post garbage.
I will also research and see if I have any legal recourse for this identity theft, as I'm sure IP addresses are attached to these bogus postings, and therefore can be easily traced to the culprit or cuplrits.
Faarax J.
Mr. Faarax:
I'm sorry somebody posted using your name. You have always been a class act on this site and I wish more people were as constructive and analytical as you are. Unfortunately that is rare with the users of this forum.
I am in the process of revamping the site so that people will have to register. I didn't want it to be that way but I see no other choice.
Please send me an email and we can discuss the identity of the culprit further.
George Lutfallah
Chicago Dispatcher
It was probably Ms. Budinski or Ms. Bellow. They get their panties wet over the most stupidest things and all the do is cry and moan and blasme others. Since they are totally devoid of adult behavior, the steal other people's names and hide behind them when they can't hide behind their own skirts.
mr. faraax,
i don't know you, but i apologize. i have had the same thing happen to me on this site, where anonymous persons have posted under my name. but they have'nt posted anything as foul as what they did to you. i'm sorry if i offended you, but what can we assume when the postings come under our (or your) names? i hope mr lutfallah finds some way to resolve this ongoing problem.
jb
Whoever the imposter is, I'm the real Mr.Faarax, not Wolfgang Weiss who imposes to be Mr. Faarax. So, Mr. Weiss, you better stop stealing my identity.
Also, Mr. Foulks and Mr. Budzynski are cool, so stop trying to intimidate them, especially Mr. Budzynski because he's cool and got alot of class. Women just adore Mr. Budzynski because he is also handsome, hot SEXY! Mr. Budzynski has alot of trouble trying to keep women off his back because they want his beautiful body.
SO, LAY-OFF or ELSE!
Wrong.
In case you haven't noticed, I've been staying away from this rat hole.
I never posted using your name.
I got $1,000.00 that says it's not me. Want to meet my challenge?
Put your money where your mouth is.
mr. wolfy,
how can we possibly know when you stay away from this 'rat hole' as you call it, when you have so many personas, nom de plumes, and are known to post under other peoples monikers?
jb
Again.
$1,000.00.
Put up or shut up.
It has been noted and stated by some that the purpose of this campaign of badmouthing, ridiculing, name calling and besmirching is expressly to keep the various elements of the taxi cab workers' rights movement at odds and to prevent them from organizing a broad base of drivers and owners. One simply cannot define oneself or one's group by defining one's enemies. History provides numerous terribly disastrous examples of such behavior. One cannot continue to dis other groups and organizations and their respective members as if they were both powerful enemies and weak do-nothings at the same time. Under these conditions anything posted on this forum, emailed or published in other media is mere lip service and empty action, good intentioned or not, and will ultimately diminish and squelch rather than improve or facilitate the chances of success.
