In today’s economy, it is all too common for employers to misclassify workers as independent contractors in order to avoid statutory protections that apply only to employees and in order to avoid unionization. The taxi industry is a powerful example of this trend. The AFL-CIO believes that all workers deserve a voice at work, regardless of how they are classified by their employer. The Executive Council is therefore proud to welcome the Taxi Workers Alliance into the AFL-CIO as a powerful example of how workers classified as independent contractors can successfully build power on the job and in their industry.
Throughout the twentieth century, taxi workers have organized powerful worker organizations in many U.S. cities. In the post-war era in New York City, taxi workers organized with a number of unions, including the United Mine Workers and, later, under the leadership of New York City Central Labor Council President Harry Van Arsdale. By the 1980s, however, employers were able to significantly weaken worker power by classifying drivers as independent contractors, eventually breaking the New York City taxi workers’ union.
Drivers did not give up. They knew that taxi workers still needed their own organization to have a voice on the job. In 1998, drivers formed the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and began to build a new organization for taxi workers. Today, the Taxi Workers Alliance is a powerful dues-based membership organization of taxi workers that is widely-recognized as the representative of drivers in the New York City taxi industry and as an increasingly powerful voice for taxi workers in Philadelphia. The Alliance is now ready to join the national AFL-CIO by affiliating with the Federation as the Taxi Workers Alliance organizing committee.
The Taxi Workers Alliance will serve as a national umbrella organization for organizing new unions of taxi workers, beginning with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and the Philadelphia Taxi Workers Alliance.
The Taxi Workers Alliance will build upon the New York Taxi Workers Alliance’s success by launching organizing drives in other cities where taxi workers are ready to organize but taxi worker unions do not currently exist. The Alliance shall establish new chapters based upon: (1) full compliance with the implementing rules established by the President pursuant to this statement and with the AFL-CIO Constitution; and (2) the achievement of exclusive representative status at one or more employers or fully paid-up membership equal to at least ten percent of taxi workers in the area.
The success of the Taxi Workers Alliance will provide an inspiring example of how workers can overcome legal and organizational barriers to create powerful unions and of how the AFL-CIO stands committed, no matter the obstacles, to helping all workers find a path to winning justice on the job.
In addition to organizing new unions of taxi workers, the Taxi Workers Alliance will stand in solidarity and coordinate joint action with existing taxi worker unions, including those organized by AFL-CIO affiliates.
The Taxi Workers Alliance will also stand together with all union members wherever it organizes by affiliating with and participating fully in all state, area and local AFL-CIO central bodies in each geographic area in which the Alliance establishes a chapter.
The Taxi Workers Alliance will have all the rights and obligations of a national organizing committee as set forth in the AFL-CIO Constitution. Per capita tax to the AFL-CIO will conform to the amount and procedure set forth for organizing committees in Article XVI of the Constitution. The provisions of Articles XX and XXI of the Constitution shall apply fully and the Taxi Workers Alliance shall be solely responsible for handling its own proceedings and ensuring its compliance with determinations and decisions rendered thereunder.
Therefore, pursuant to Articles III and XV of the AFL-CIO Constitution, the Executive Council delegates to the President the authority to issue an organizing committee charter to the Taxi Worker Alliance, AFL-CIO and to establish implementing rules. The charter is to be issued on a provisional basis, subject to review in no more than three years.