...CWA working with Portland cabbies to start own company
(From Page 3)
proto-union, the group pools funds from
members to help when drivers get sick
or have an accident.
Then Wako heard from a friend in
Denver about a group of taxi drivers
who formed their own cab company
with the help of a union, Communica-
tions Workers of America (CWA). In re-
cent years, CWA-affiliated companies
have formed in Alexandria, Virginia;
Madison, Wisconsin; and Phoenix, Ari-
zona. In New York City, a National Taxi
Workers Alliance formed and last year
became the latest union to affiliate with
the national AFL-CIO.
CWA, once known as the phone
company union, has been decimated by
wave after wave of deregulation and out-
sourcing, and has lately broadened its
reach. Portland Local 7901 has taken in
salon workers, techies, and phone can-
vassers. Why not taxi drivers?
Courts have ruled that cab drivers —
when they are classified as independent
contractors — don’t have the legal right
to form a union under the National La-
bor Relations Act passed in 1935. But
as unionists knew before 1935, workers
can unionize whether the law recog-
nizes it or not. Portland’s taxi drivers
had already gone on strike. They were
already paying their own voluntary
dues. Now Wako and other drivers re-
solved to affiliate with CWA and be-
come part of the labor movement.
At first, the union effort was entirely
underground. GPS devices in Broad-
way cabs would tip off management if
all of a sudden a dozen or more taxis
converged on the parking lot outside the
Kedir Wako holds a union card showing membership in CWA Local 7901.
Wako, who works 14-hour days driving for Broadway Cab, wants City
approval for a new union-affiliated cab company that would enable drivers to
make a better life.
union hall. So Wako and his fellow driv-
ers carpooled, and parked in different
spots, blocks away from the union hall.
They put together a proposal to form
a new driver-owned company, modeled
on the Denver co-op. The proposed
Union Cab Co. would offer health in-
surance, charge lower dispatch fees, and
allow drivers to work more reasonable
hours.
Wako and several other drivers filed
papers of incorporation. And they made
a formal application for 50 new vehicle
permits to the Private For-Hire Trans-
portation Review Board. That Board
considers applications and makes rec-
ommendations, but no new permits can
be issued without City Council ap-
proval. So Wako and Local 7901 Presi-
dent Madelyn Elder, joined by Oregon
AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain,
met with Mayor Adams on Feb. 4,
2011. They explained their proposal,
but also told the mayor about their
worry that drivers would be fired for
trying to organize a competing com-
pany. Adams was direct: If any drivers
are fired, he wants to hear about it.
“Sam Adams — he’s our hero,”
Wako says. “If the cab companies try to
retaliate because [we came to his of-
fice], the mayor’s not gonna tolerate it.”
Adams also promised that the City
would study taxi driver working condi-
tions. Eleven months later, the City’s
exhaustively researched report con-
firmed what Wako told him — and sets
the stage for reform.
City administrators are working on
a proposal, though Kathleen Butler, reg-
ulatory manager at the City Department
of Revenue wouldn’t give specifics.
There are many possibilities:
• The City could simply regulate the
kitty, declaring a maximum amount or
requiring companies to justify the
charges.
• The City could change the way per-
mits are given out, and/or reshuffle who
gets them. Year after year, the same
companies have gotten the same num-
ber of permits, but the City has no legal
obligation to continue that, and there’s
no inherent logic to the current distribu-
tion. The City could decide to strip
Broadway or other companies of per-
mits, or it could move to a point system
which gives preference to companies
where drivers make a living wage.
• The City could issue vehicle per-
mits to drivers, not companies; then
drivers could choose which companies
to affiliate based on which offered the
fairest terms. That’s what Red Diamond
— taxi drivers’ elected driver represen-
tative on the Private For-Hire Trans-
portation Review Board — is proposing.
• Or the City could give Wako and
his fellow drivers a shot at forming a
second cab co-op. No additional per-
mits have been granted since 1998, and
most drivers interviewed by the City
were concerned that issuing new per-
mits would dilute the market and thus
reduce driver earnings. But again, noth-
ing prevents the City from withdrawing
permits from existing companies.
Whatever the City administrators
propose is likely to air at the July meet-
ing of the Private For-Hire Transporta-
tion Review Board, which has not been
scheduled yet.
“We’re not gonna give up now,”
Wako said. “We want to liberate our-
selves.”
...CWA union activist fired
(From Page )
fundraising “ultimatum” by $47. She
said in nine years at the call center she
has missed only one quota, and twice
has been recognized as “caller of the
year.” However, since she became ac-
tive in the union last October, she has
received five warnings for not meeting
her quota and recently was placed on
probation.
Robinson and other workers say
their call center has seen a shuffling of
donor contact lists, with Portland get-
ting new lists that were less lucrative.
Robinson’s termination also coin-
cided with two bargaining sessions held
earlier in the week that didn’t go well.
CWA Local 7901 Union Represen-
tative Joe Crane said following a slow
start, negotiations had actually started
to progress, though the employer still
would meet only two days a month,
and for only two to three hours at a
time. Crane and Robinson said talks
held Tuesday and Wednesday, June 26-
27, digressed and at times became
heated. The following day, Robinson
was terminated.
Broadway Floral
for the BEST flowers call
503-288-5537
1638 NE Broadway, Portland
PAGE 8
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
JULY 6, 2012