[sacw] [ACT] Everything About Bhairavi Desai

Harsh Kapoor act@egroups.com
Fri, 21 Jan 2000 23:27:06 +0100


YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW,
.... ... ... ... ... ... ... BUT COULDN'T FIND A CAB DRIVER TO ASK.

The following Personal Profile appeared in News India-Times in December, '99.
It was written by Arun Aguiar.

LEADING LABOR INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM

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.

NEW MODEL
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.

BOX 1
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

BOX 2
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.)

PICTURE CAPTIONS

Bhairavi Desai agreed to stay in one place long enough for this Portrait (On
Assignment/ Jay Mondal)

Team TWA: from left, Javid Khan, Bhairavi Desai, Hidayatullah Khan, Bikku
Kuruvilla, Luis Molina, and Biju Mathew (a few organizing committee members
were out driving).