Bhairavi Desai | |
|---|---|
 Desai on October 20, 2011 | |
| Born | |
| Known for | Founding member of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance |
Bhairavi Desai (pronounced BY-ra-vee They-SIGH [1] ) is a founding member of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a union representing approximately 15,000 taxi drivers in New York City. [2]
She is known as a progressive social activist, including her efforts for social justice for the "Cuba, Palestine, and El Salvador solidarity movements". [3]
Desai was born in Gujarat, India, and came with her parents to Harrison, New Jersey, when she was six years old. Her father was a lawyer in India, but was unable to find work in the legal profession, consequently finding work at a grocery store. [1] As a student at Harrison High School, she was selected for the National Honor Society and was chosen to attend the Governor's School of New Jersey. [4]
She received a degree in Women's Studies from Rutgers University and following that, worked at Manavi, the South Asian women's organization in New Jersey that worked with victims of domestic violence.
She then moved to working for the rights of Asian workers by joining the Committee Against Asian American Violence in 1996. In 1998, she and others set up the NYTWA with an initial membership of 700 workers.
She currently resides in the Bronx, where her husband Victor Salazar, is also a union activist. [1]
Her first success came in May 1998 when the first strike in thirty years was called by the yellow cabs. Over 90% of New York taxi drivers joined the strike to protest against unfair regulations, medical checkups and health insurance for the drivers. Despite being a woman in an overwhelmingly male-dominated industry, many taxi drivers respect her. [5]
Desai and the TWA were involved in initiating new regulations (2011) by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission regarding the lucrative business of rooftop ads on taxis. These highly visible and mobile advertisements generate income for the medallion owners but are considered a burden by the taxi owners who work for them: drivers have never had a voice in their selection nor a stake in their revenue. In recent years, many of the rooftop signs have caused controversy by promoting businesses in adult entertainment. According to the new act, drivers who own their own vehicles are now permitted ultimate veto power over any advertisements that they can "reasonably" regard as "inappropriate". In a longer view, Desai anticipates that this act serves as "a step toward ultimately requiring medallion owners to give some of the revenue from taxi-roof advertisements to vehicle owners." [6]
Desai received the Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World Award in 2005. [7] [8] She was a regular contributor to forums and events at the Marxist Brecht Forum. [9] [10]
Harrison is a town in the western part of Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is a suburb of the nearby city of Newark, New Jersey, and is located 8 miles (13 km) from New York City. Once considered "the beehive of industry", the town is undergoing a residential renewal, particularly along the Passaic River.
Taxicabs in New York City come in two varieties: yellow and green; they are widely recognizable symbols of the city. Taxis painted yellow are able to pick up passengers anywhere in the five boroughs. Taxis painted apple green, which began to appear in August 2013, are allowed to pick up passengers in Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Both types have the same fare structure. Taxicabs are operated by private individuals or companies and licensed by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). It also oversees over 40,000 other for-hire vehicles, including "black cars", commuter vans, and ambulettes.
Harrison High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades, located in Harrison, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as the lone secondary school of the Harrison Public Schools. Students from East Newark attend Harrison High School as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the East Newark School District, though the East Newark district has sought to switch to sending students to Kearny High School, citing potential cost savings.
Sima Samar is a Hazara human rights advocate, activist and medical doctor within national and international forums, who served as Minister of Women's Affairs of Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2003. She is the former Chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and, from 2005 to 2009, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan. In 2012, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "her longstanding and courageous dedication to human rights, especially the rights of women, in one of the most complex and dangerous regions in the world."
The taxicabs of the United States make up a mature system; most U.S. cities have a licensing scheme which restricts the number of taxicabs allowed. As of 2012 the total number of taxi cab drivers in the United States is 233,900; the average annual salary of a taxi cab driver is $22,820 and the expected percent job increase over the next 10 years is 16%.
Saint Joan of the Stockyards is a play written by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht between 1929 and 1931, after the success of his musical The Threepenny Opera and during the period of his radical experimental work with the Lehrstücke. It is based on the musical that he co-authored with Elisabeth Hauptmann, Happy End (1929). In this version of the story of Joan of Arc, Brecht transforms her into "Joan Dark", a member of the "Black Straw Hats" in 20th-century Chicago. The play charts Joan's battle with Pierpont Mauler, the unctuous owner of a meat-packing plant. Like her namesake, Joan is a doomed woman, a martyr and an innocent in a world of strike-breakers, fat cats, and penniless workers. Like many of Brecht's plays it is laced with humor and songs as part of its epic dramaturgical structure and deals with the theme of emancipation from material suffering and exploitation.
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission is an agency of the New York City government that licenses and regulates the medallion taxis and for-hire vehicle industries, including app-based companies such as Uber and Lyft. The TLC's regulatory landscape includes medallion (yellow) taxicabs, green or Boro taxicabs, black cars, community-based livery cars, commuter vans, paratransit vehicles (ambulettes), and some luxury limousines.
Illegal taxicabs, sometimes known as pirate taxis, gypsy cabs, or jitney cabs, are taxicabs and other for-hire vehicles that are not duly licensed or permitted by the jurisdiction in which they operate. Most major cities worldwide require taxicabs to be licensed, safety-inspected, insured as for-hire vehicles, and to use taximeters, and there may also be requirements that the taxi driver be registered or accredited. However, many unlicensed cabs are in operation. Illegal cabs may be marked taxi vehicles, and others are personal vehicles used by an individual to offer unauthorized taxi-like services. Illegal cabs are prevalent in cities with medallion systems, which restrict the number of legal cabs in operation. Since their introduction in 2009, vehicles affiliated with ridesharing companies have been classified as illegal taxicabs in some jurisdictions.
Biju Mathew is a New York-based Marxist activist-intellectual. An immigrant from India, he teaches Information Systems and American studies at Rider University. A veteran labor organizer, he co-founded the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, is a founding secretary of the National Taxi Workers Alliance, and president of the International Alliance of App-Based Transport Workers. As a writer, Mathew has published several academic articles as well as the 2005 book Taxi!: Cabs and Capitalism in New York City.
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