PORTLAND CABBIES UNITE
Facing greedy companies and unresponsive City
officials, immigrant taxi drivers called the union
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Behind the wheel on the streets of
Portland, there’s a group of 900 drivers
who work 12 hours a day, six or seven
days a week, with no paid vacation or
sick days, no retirement benefit, and no
health benefits of any kind, not even
workers’ compensation — for an aver-
age wage of $6.22 an hour. They’re taxi
cab drivers, and those details of their
working conditions are among the high-
lights of a city report that Mayor Sam
Adams ordered after meeting with driv-
ers and their union allies. Based on 250
interviews and over six months of re-
search, the report lays the groundwork
for reforms that are expected to be pro-
posed this month.
The story begins a decade ago with a
taxi driver uprising. On Sept. 6, 2001, a
hundred Broadway Cab drivers went on
strike to protest a $100-a-week increase
in the weekly kitty — money drivers
have to pay to the cab company, suppos-
edly for insurance, marketing, credit
card processing, and dispatch. After ral-
lying outside Broadway headquarters,
they drove to City Hall and parked their
taxis on Fourth Avenue, filling the street
and blocking traffic. They demanded
that City Council do something. But
nothing came of it.
But after the strike, drivers say, strike
leaders quit or were fired, one by one,
until only one remained: Kedir Wako.
JULY 6, 2012
Like so many of the drivers, Wako is
a new American. In 1990, Wako was a
19-year-old veterinary student in
Shashamane, Ethiopia, when his gov-
ernment began sweeping up young peo-
ple for service in a two-front war against
Eritrea and a group of rebels. Wako fled,
walked two months to reach the Kenyan
border, and spent the next two years in
the Thika refugee camp. Sponsored by
the International Rescue Committee, he
arrived in the United States in Decem-
ber 1995. He was able to bring over his
Ethiopian girlfriend, and they married.
To support their growing family, Wako
worked at a Portland nursing home, and
later ran an airport shuttle business. But
an airport crackdown on shuttles put
him out of business, and he ended up at
Broadway Cab in 1998.
For immigrants like Wako, $4,500 is
the price of admission to the American
Dream. A three-year-old Crown Victo-
ria police cruiser with 100,000 miles can
be purchased at auction for $3,000, and
for another $1,500 be put into service as
a taxi cab, where it can last another three
or more years.
As a cab driver, you work for your-
self and set your own hours. But mak-
ing a living is another matter.
Taxi drivers face competition from
all sides. Town cars and shuttle vans
skim the cream — airport customers —
while “gypsy” cabs, unregulated cabs
that come into Portland from the sub-
urbs, compete for downtown pickups.
Portland taxi regulations say suburban
cabs may drop off passengers in Port-
land, but not pick them up. Shuttles are
supposed to take groups only, and only
to hotels. Town cars, or “executive
sedans” in city parlance, must be re-
served an hour in advance and are barred
from charging less than $50 for rides to
and from the airport. But cab drivers say
all these rules are violated. And to make
matters worse, some downtown hotel
doormen steer customers only to drivers
who pay them a kickback. [The City is
cracking down on that practice.]
Meanwhile, taxis are tightly regu-
lated. Drivers must get a permit and
maintain a clean driving record. Cars
must be less than 10 years old, and have
a fare meter. And Portland, like many
other cities, limits the size of the taxi
fleet to promote stability. The City issues
only 382 taxi vehicle permits, and doles
them out to the same five companies
year after year. To receive vehicle per-
mits, cab companies must provide taxi
service city-wide, 24 hours a day, seven
days a week; must have a dispatch sys-
tem that can provide “reasonably
prompt” response to telephone requests
for service; and may not refuse any re-
quest for service within the city. Two-
thirds of the permitted taxi fleet must be
in service at all times, and no more than
two-thirds of those can be within a mile
of the airport at any given time.
Taxis are a vital public service, which
is why the City regulates them. They
help tourists, business travelers and res-
idents get around, let bar patrons get
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Taxi drivers rally outside Broadway Cab in 2001.
home without driving intoxicated; and payment deadline or late payment, for
get the sick and elderly to grocery stores tickets or accidents, for failing to pick up
and doctor’s appointments. City taxi an accepted trip.
City code says companies can’t
regulations protect the public, but do lit-
tle to protect drivers; the City limits fares charge drivers simply for using the per-
drivers charge the public, for example, mit — the charges must be for services.
but doesn’t limit the kitty payments that But that appears to be what’s happening.
The City estimates Broadway is col-
companies charge drivers.
The City report, entitled “Taxi Driver lecting just under $4 million a year from
Labor Market Study: Long Hours, Low the kitty alone (not counting its fines and
Wages” is blunt: The kitty is the biggest fees). Broadway does less advertising
cause of drivers’ low net income and and has fewer dispatchers than Radio.
long working hours, and the City’s sys- So assuming that Broadway pays the
tem for granting taxi permits contributes same for insurance as Radio, the $330 a
to drivers’ poor conditions. “The over- week difference suggests a profit that
tops $2.6 million.
supply of drivers rel-
And that works
ative to the limited
out to be a direct
number of tightly-
... 900 drivers work
transfer of $17,000 a
held taxi permits cre-
year from some of
ates artificially poor 12 hours a day, six or
the Portland area’s
market conditions for seven days a week,
poorest residents to
drivers,” the report
one of its wealthiest.
says, “with too few with no paid vacation
Who owns Broad-
incentives for compa- or sick days, no
way? Not a single
nies to provide ade-
Broadway driver in-
quate services at rea- retirement benefit,
sonable costs to and no health benefits terviewed for this
story knew. The
drivers.”
company says on its
The one exception of any kind, not even
website that it’s
to the poor conditions workers’ comp — for
owned by “a small
is Radio Cab, the
group of private in-
City’s only driver- an average wage of
vestors.” Business-
owned co-op. There, $6.22 an hour.
man Sho Dozono
drivers work eight
— who ran against
hours a day, five or
Sam Adams for
six days a week, and
income is significantly higher, in part mayor in 2008 — was one of those in-
because the kitty for drivers who own vestors, but he sold his interest in the
company. Today, according to City
their own taxis is $250 a week.
By contrast, the kitty is about $425 a records provided in response to a public
week at Portland Taxi, $500 a week at records request, Broadway’s owners are
New Rose City Cab Company, $520 a Thomas G. Saunders (80 percent), Brad
week at Green Taxi, and $580 a week at Whittle of Denver (16 percent), and lo-
Broadway Cab and its subsidiary, cal manager Raye Miles (4 percent).
“Who’s he?” asked Tom Alexander,
Sassy’s Cab. Not surprisingly, most driv-
ers want to work at Radio, but there are Radio Cab’s director of business serv-
only so many vehicle permits to go ices, when told Tom Saunders owns his
around. Radio, with 136 permits, is one biggest competitor. [Alexander has been
of Portland’s two big companies; the in the Portland taxi business since 1970.]
other is Broadway Cab, which has 136 State corporate records connect Saun-
permits, but also owns Sassy’s Cab, ders to nine privately-held corporations
which has 17. The others are much that own apartment complexes and com-
smaller: Green Taxi has 48, Portland mercial real estate around Portland.
After seeing fellow ringleaders fired,
Taxi has 26, and New Rose City has 19.
Alone among the cab companies, Wako lay low for a while. But in 2008,
Broadway also makes significant in- he began meeting one-on-one with fel-
come from penalties and fees. Ranging low drivers at the various cab companies
from $10 to $100, they are charged to to launch a new effort: the Portland
drivers for things like investigating cus- Drivers Self Help Association. A kind of
tomer complaints, extending the kitty
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