(On Assignment/ Jay Mondal)
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| Bhairavi Desai agreed to stay in one place long enough for
this Portrait (On Assignment/ Jay Mondal) |
THREE STRIKES, YOU'RE IN
Bhairavi Desai, 27, is a founding member and the only staffer of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, 2. Four years ago, she moved over from the New Jersey-based women's social services nonprofit organization, Manavi, to join TWA's predecessor, the Lease Drivers Coalition. That was "because of Bhairavi's strong commitment to immigrant rights" according to Biju Mathew, a TWA organizing committee member. Mathew works as an Assistant Professor for Information Systems at Rider University. She soon made her mark. In mid-98, at Ave D and 4th St, still a rarely visited part of town, "TWA" achieved a new milepost in establishing south Asian worker rights in New York City. Perversely cold shouldered by the Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) for their organizing efforts, the TWA team called for a 24-hour strike. The strike was wildly successful. In describing the action, New York Magazine wrote, "Desai was the force behind the most impressive show of cabbie solidarity in the city's history."
PARADIGM SHIFT
That "show" gave the nascent TWA legitimacy to be heard. Since then, eight New York City Council members led by the respected Ronnie Eldridge and the vociferous Stephen DiBrienza have backed TWA in negotiations over municipal regulation of the industry. This April, the City Council's transportation committee proposed legislation to solve some long-standing complaints by drivers, among them a revenue generation ploy that imposed double liability on payment of tickets simultaneously to both the Department of Motor Vehicles and the TLC. It was eliminated.
The legislation was a watered-down version of a bill drafted by TWA's legal team of faculty and students of NYU's immigration law clinic. However, all legislation is compromise. And often symbolic, to boot. In this case, the new regime represented the first ever enmeshing of the interests of subcontinental/ south Asian workers with the city's political power infrastructure. With careful nurturing, that relationship can benefit the south Asian working class community in service sectors like restaurants and domestic work and, to quote a union source, "numbers of software engineers who are being used for 'manual' labor" without an adequate form of labor organization. In December, TWA established common ground with the Transit Workers Union in their contract negotiations with the MTA, and publicly supported them at a news conference Dec. 13. Whether intended or not, that was another modest bit of muscle-flexing. Driver appreciation of the work being done by Bhairavi and her colleagues has boosted the Alliance's membership to 2,000. Mainstream recognition of TWA's responsible conduct has improved its finances: The Fund for the City of New York has awarded it a $50,000 grant from its "Union Square Award" fund for ameliorating the lot of immigrant workers.
| BHAIRAVI DESAI SIGHTINGS "Catch Me If You Can" |
| 1) 1,000 words with 2 pictures New York Times Public Lives Profile, Dec. 8, 1999. (The Times is read nationwide -- from the Oval Office to Governor's Mansions to small town coffee shops -- and in every major newsroom in the USA, Canada, Europe, Latin America, et al). |
| 2) Website Links per Yahoo: 13 as on 12/18/99 |
| 3) Internet Count of Newspaper Stories on the Danny Glover incident and its aftermath: 220 worldwide, and counting. |
| 4) Local TV/ Radio like VH-1, Channel 2,4,5,7,9,11, WBAI. |
| 5) Pace University Diversity Forum, Dec. |
| 6) A Magazine's 100 Asian Americans of 1999 at Grand Hyatt, Nov. |
| 7) Barnard Forum on Migration, Sept. |
| 8) Panel discussion at GOPIO biennial convention, Sept. |
| 9) Diasporadics festival panelist, Sept. |
| 10) New York Magazine People to Watch + a memorable full page portrait, July 1998 |
| UPCOMING: |
| 11) South Asian Students Association, Texas, Jan. 2000. |
| 12) South Asian Journalists Association, TBA |
| (Author's Note: Any more prestige appearances and union organizing might become fashionable.) |
Three years shy of 30, Bhairavi Desai's panache in the role of TWA's chief and only full-time organizer is intriguing. Our several south Asian Internet millionaires, barely into whiskers, prove beyond doubt that our young 'uns, born, raised, or educated in the USA make good techies. 25-something Sameer Bhatia's $30 million payday when he sold Hotmail to Microsoft is all the evidence needed. Case closed. However, all things social, societal, sociological, psychological, historical and soulful have traditionally been regarded as the specialty of first generation expatriates. So, a young woman who came to the United States at six going out and organizing thousands of expat drivers in the rough and tumble world of the taxi trade is a sure sign that the times, they are a-changin'.
Witness also these curious contrasts: Most noticeably, there's the obvious gender thing. Then, Bhairavi's a Rutgers graduate in Women's Studies in an industry with a 99.9% male, mainly non-graduated workforce (the semi-allegorical ex-NASA nuclear science PhDs driving cabs in the 70's now being the stuff of distant memory).
There's more: At 95 lbs, she's light as a feather in a profession and industry where bulk is beauty. The drivers drive; their organizer takes the bus, subway and PATH. She's a vegetarian, while many of them are hearty carnivores. Could there possibly be other Gujaratis in TWA? -- It might be easier to find Keralites riding to work on the backs of camels. And while her daily office wear of rustic laingas and traditional Gujarati clothing makes heads turn in the Garment District near TWA's office on West 27th Street, don't hold your breath waiting to see cab drivers in lungis any time soon.
SHIFT CHANGE
On the other hand, this union organizer's working conditions parallel the drivers'; substitute office for car. TWA owns just a little more furniture and fixtures than a desk and a work station at which computer monitor and keyboard co-exist with flyers, newsletters, and papers, plenty of papers. To this windowless shared space, Bhairavi returns periodically to retrieve phone messages, up to 12 at a time, answer beeper pages, up to five in an hour, and assemble publicity materials by the pound. Then it's off again to gas stations and garages to dialog with, lobby, and enroll more drivers as members (not just desis, but Puerto Ricans, Haitians, in short anyone who drives).
Are there regular working hours, we inquired. "I come in to the office after 12:30 p.m. I usually don't leave till midnight," the labor organizer and office manager rolled into one replied with a grin. "In fact, tonight we have a meeting that will only start at 12:30 a.m." (Yikes!)
DISTANT RIDES
During the day, field work and meetings might also take her off to divers places. Like Harlem, USA where Nov. 28 she met with an agitated audience at a public hearing convened by Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields. The agenda: disturbing questions of south Asian reverse racism that surfaced after black Broadway and film actor, Danny Glover, was denied taxi service. Or the Punjabi Deli on E. Houston St outside which several taxis lie motionless like whales on a dark sea. Kulwinder Singh's narrow dhaba is a handy pit stop in the 12-hour $100 average make or break shift. Though the home-cooked food and the familiar faces are welcome, the drivers eat standing up. Afterwards, there's only time to linger for one quick chai.
Traveling far and wide is par for the course. And this is an industry in which only an all-terrain union organizer can thrive. We journalists know a bit about that: We too dash off on assignments at unpredictable hours, only to stumble home after midnight (but don't you ask us what we did in between!)
TRADE-INS
So, if Bhairavi Desai's so good, how much is she worth? She discloses her personal financials as if she were a presidential candidate i.e. totally. Sadly, the comparison ends there: Like her working conditions, her income mirrors that of the drivers. TWA has been able to pay her a steady monthly salary of $1500 only since September. That pays for a Jersey City apartment (no, she doesn't cab it in), and an ample supply of Pepsi, desi sweets, and quick meals at favorite midtown restaurants. And before she began receiving a regular paycheck?: "I somehow managed," said Bhairavi, using the Indian euphemism for "Don't Ask, Won't Tell".
MODEL CHANGE
All of which left us wondering whether Bhairavi doesn't merit revisions to her terms. Looking ahead to 2000 some sample upgrades could be: 1) regular lunch and dinner times so she doesn't develop ulcers, 2) frequent evenings per week spent far from work, so her eyes don't blur over with streaming yellow, and 3) a minimum amount of calorific intake so she doesn't end up looking like, well, like, like, like Calista Flockhart. On such small details are great Unions built. After all, she may work for TWA, but this jewel in the rough belongs to us.
| WHAT'S IN A NAME? |
| 1) "Red" Rosa The writer and orator Rosa Luxembourg (1871-1919), a tempestuous kind of socialist Joan of Arc, was the most prominent female Marxist of the twentieth century. This Polish Jew became a leading figure in an organizational schism among Germany's social democrats over joining a World War 1 effort that would only pit workers against workers. It led ultimately to the formation of the Communist Party of Germany. |
| 2) La Pasionara Was the name given to Dolores Ibarruri, whose fervent songs of sufferance boosted the morale of the International Brigade and the republicans while they defended Madrid with guns and slogans like "No Pasaran" (They shall not pass) for three years against General Franco's fascists during the Spanish Civil War. |
| 3) "Comrade" Desai? "Bhai"ravi Desai |