Taxi! : Cabs and Capitalism in New York City, Updated Edition

Driving a cab has long attracted recent immigrants and others at the margins of the economy. In recent years, however, the working conditions and the nature of cab ownership have changed. As Biju Mathew reveals in this fast-paced account of the benefits and hardships in the lives of today's taxi drivers, just about everything has changed dramatically except the yellow paint. At once a passionate declaration of worker solidarity and an ethnography of work, Taxi! is a compelling narrative of the lives of immigrant taxi drivers in New York City. This updated edition covers the formation of the International Taxi Workers Alliance, the unusual collaboration with the Central Labor Council, and 2007 taxi strikes protesting New York City's plan requiring taxicabs to install costly global positioning systems and credit-card machines.