National Taxi Workers Alliance Gets AFL-CIO Charter at Future of Work Event
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The National Taxi Workers Alliance made history when its leader, Bhairavi Desai, accepted the organization’s charter as a member of the AFL-CIO during an event today on “The Future of Work.” Highlighting the changing shape of the union movement, the event opened with remarks by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Desai then took part in a panel discussion which included representatives of other labor organizations that represent workers who are either traditionally excluded from coverage by labor law, or for whom the changing shape of the economy means the protections they have on paper mean little.
Joining Desai were Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance; Justin Molito, director of organizing for the Writers Guild of America, East; and Bill Cruice, founding executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, NNU. The panel was rounded out by economist David Weil, a professor at Boston University, who discussed how changing business models affected the exercise of employee rights. Before the program began, dozens of exuberant taxi workers, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with ”Justice, Rights, Respect, Dignity” crowded around Solis, Trumka and Desai. Trumka said the taxi workers are:
an inspiring example of how working people are organizing even in the face of employment relations that have eroded all of our rights.
