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Immigrant Taxi Drivers Form Co-Op in Denver

July 15, 2009 by tina braxton

Immigrant Taxi Drivers Form Co-Op in Denver

by Clayton Dewey
Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 8:37pm

Denver cab drivers have successfully broken the stranglehold three major taxi companies in Denver had on the market by forming their own worker cooperative, Union Taxi.

Driving a taxi means long hours and high monthly leases to cab companies. In the article Denver Taxi Drivers' Struggle Pays Off , Sudanese driver Yousif explains, "I worked seven days a week, 18 hours a day, no day off. Sometimes I didn't make nothing for myself."

Drivers have to pay anywhere from $1,600 to $2,100 a month to lease a vehicle. Many drivers struggled to earn fares to even break even, forcing them to put in ridiculously long hours. Now in the co-op all drivers put in $700. The drivers will then split profits earned.

The co-op is part of the Communications Workers of America, the union that helped them change a state law which had previously made it near impossible to start its own business.

Union Taxi is an exciting example of workers coming together to run their own business and have a voice in the work they do. It will be a difficult road ahead, to be sure, but it sounds like they are pleased to be working on their own terms in a company based on solidarity instead of filling the coffers of large taxi companies.

Comments

Interesting

July 15, 2009 by Stanley, 18 weeks 3 days ago
Comment id: 3674

I had no idea-they were run that way. The homeless newspaper, the Denver Voice, which I'm looking at right now, made no mention of the fact that "union taxi" was a co-op in there 3-page long front-page article. That's the last time I buy the voice. I don't know why they wouldn't mention that.

The Denver Voice

July 16, 2009 by tina braxton, 18 weeks 3 days ago
Comment id: 3675

I don't know why they didn't mention it, either. Nor am I certain why they covered the story at all, unless some of the taxi drivers are homeless (quite possible).

The Denver Voice provides a livelihood for hundreds of homeless people. I think it would be worth buying, no matter what was in it.

Correction

July 19, 2009 by Stanley, 17 weeks 6 days ago
Comment id: 3685

I was mistaken. The fact that it's cooperatively run is just buried deep in the article, though I still have not found them talking about the fact that they're part of a union.

For financial and personal reasons Union Taxi first attracted 570 drivers
wanting to join the cooperatively owned business when it began to work
toward earning a certificate of public convenience and necessity from the
Colorado Public Utilities Commission, the regulatory body that oversees the
licensing of taxi companies in Colorado.

Quote from article:
Since 1953 the Colorado Public Utilities Commission has regulated the taxi
industry in Denver. At that time there were three taxi companies, and from
1953 onward those companies, Zone Taxi, which is no longer in operation,
Metro Taxi and Yellow Cab, have had publicly approved monopolies, making
them very powerful and very lucrative.

Denver¹s average taxi lease rate is higher than the lease rates in Chicago,
a city with much more potential for taxi driver income. This has forced
drivers into a difficult position. They either pay unusually high lease
rates to drive. Or, they fight for the right to form their own company,
which is what the Union Taxi drivers did, and in the mean time they helped
change state law and open the doors for a more competitive taxi market.

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