It's been a good few years for taxi drivers gaining a voice on the job. Today in Austin, Texas, the National Taxi Workers Alliance (NTWA) granted its first local chapter charter since it joined the AFL-CIO. The NTWA was chartered by the AFL-CIO in 2011, with New York City and Philadelphia locals as the founding members.  

More than 100 striking taxi drivers from Las Vegas traveled to the state Capitol in Carson City, Nev., this week to rally in support of legislation to crack down on the practice of "long-hauling" and to give drivers a voice on the Nevada Taxicab Authority Board. As previously reported, the drivers, who are members of ITPEU/OPEIU Local 4873, have been on strike since May 3 from Yellow-Checker-Star Transportation.

Last Sunday, taxi drivers employed at Yellow-Checker-Star Transportation in Las Vegas authorized a strike, triggered by what they say are the company’s unfair labor practices by refusing to provide the union with information relative to collective bargaining. There are 1,703 drivers in the bargaining unit.

Industrial, Technical and Professional Employees (ITPEU) represents the taxi drivers and is an affiliate of the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU). Unfair labor practice charges were filed by ITPEU/OPEIU Local 4873 on Friday, March 1.

Union members have been called many stereotypes over the years: thugs, relics, selfish—the list goes on. But the truth is union members are people who work and make contributions to their communities every day. Union members are innovating on the job and training the next generation of skilled workers, among many other things.

In Brooklyn, N.Y., yesterday family members, taxi drivers and elected officials held a prayer vigil outside Kings County Hospital for taxi driver Key Chun Kim, 53, who remains in a coma after suffering a brutal assault by a passenger on New Year’s Day. Taxi drivers are 30 times more likely to be killed on the job than other workers, says New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) Executive Director Bhairavi Desai.

In some year-end reviews of labor in 2012 (here and here), we see an important missed connection that the union movement is committed to building in 2013. While these reviews identify important worker struggles throughout the year, they fail to recognize that all workers—immigrant, public, private, low-wage and middle-class—share values and experiences that unite them in a broad-based union movement. A major theme of many of last year’s important labor struggles was how immigrant workers and the union movement came together in local communities to win justice.

Sarah Burris of UNITE HERE sends us this update from Arizona. Burris works in online media. 

I've been on the ground this week in Arizona to help a campaign UNITE HERE invested in this year called Adios Arpaio. Adios Arpaio was a massive voter-registration campaign, aimed at voting out the notoriously anti-immigrant Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, that was led by 2,000 high school students, many of them the children of immigrants. We registered 35,000 new voters, and 70% of them are Latino. I've spent some time here before and many, many weeks since helping with everything I could. 

San Francisco cab driver Brad Newsham does not believe that corporations are people and that money is free speech. And he wanted to do something big to get his point across. So he went to the beach, brought a helicopter and 1,000 friends. This video shows what happened next.

The next time you take a cab, take a moment to think about the person driving the car. Taxi drivers typically do not have the same benefits as workers in other professions. But the National Taxi Workers Alliance (NTWA) is working to change that. 

NTWA in New York City is the largest taxi driver union in the United States working to ensure that its members can make a living wage. This summer, Sahar Khan, one of the nine New York Union Summer interns, is learning about NTWA's innovative strategies to grow the union's membership.

Our union brothers and sisters understand this isn't a “they,” it’s an “us,” says Bill Camp, executive secretary of the Sacramento [Calif.] Central Labor Council, of the shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., that killed six people and wounded four. This Sunday, the labor council is coordinating with area groups to hold a candlelight vigil for the victims of the shooting at the state Capitol at 1315 10th St., in Sacramento. The vigil will start at 6 p.m. People are encouraged to bring their own candles.