Taxi drivers say cabbies have gotten stick's short end

Millions of hurried passengers depend on taxi drivers, but relatively rarely to they talk to their drivers about history, politics and justice.

Last night, however, members of the Penn community had the chance to do just that with Biju Matthew and Ronald Blount at a dinner and discussion at the Greenfield Intercultural Center.

Matthew, a former cab driver, recently published Taxi! Cabs and Capitalism in New York City and is a co-founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Blount is president of the equivalent Philadelphia organization.

Matthew described the history of the taxi industry and the Taxi Workers Alliance, as well as specific issues facing taxi drivers.

A big puzzle for Matthew, he said, was why the mayor of New York and other politicians insisted on adding new rules to the taxi industry in the 1990s.

The answer struck him as he sat in a traffic jam in Times Square, which he realized had become a "suburb and mega-mall."

"Times Square shows the production of suburban pleasure in an urban place, a safe pleasure," Matthew said.

What he meant, he explained, was that in the 1990s, politicians were trying to transform New York into a global city.

"The new suburban middle class had to be produced for," he said. "And the new work force has to be made subservient. The immigrant population had to be disciplined."

He pointed to an enforcement against panhandlers, sidewalk vendors and street artists that coincided with restrictions against taxis.

"They wanted to keep the poor out of anything the new middle class came in contact with," Matthew said.

Another issue Matthew addressed was a vehicle leasing system instituted in the 1970s that greatly increases the monetary risk for taxi drivers.

Previously, owners gave the drivers benefits and a share of the meter revenue.

Now, however, drivers start each shift down about $150, due to the car rental fee and the cost of gasoline, according to Matthew.

"The risk is pushed down onto the people who have the least power in the system," Matthew said.

In his short time on the floor, Blount compared the New York and Philadelphia taxi industries and detailed the struggles of organizing his union.

"We didn't have resources," Blount said, "but we had the passion of the drivers."

That passion, both men agreed, is crucial to a recent increase in the size and influence of taxi driver unions in both cities.

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