A Letter to Suburban Cabdrivers
Fellow Cabdrivers! Brothers behind the steering wheel! The United Taxidrivers Community Council would like to extend our hand in solidarity to our fellow taxi workers in the Chicagoland area. We are currently involved in organizing an activist, membership-based, grassroots organization to fight for our rights as workers and human beings. It is called the United Taxidrivers Community Council, and we publish a new newsletter called the “UTCC Voice”, meant to be an independent voice for all cabdrivers and our issues. You may have seen it at the airports.
As you may be aware, one of our founding members, Ilyas Sayed, was instrumental in taking on the Skokie parking ban on cabdrivers last winter. We had a great victory in this struggle, and it brought the Chicago and suburban cabdrivers together in solidarity around this issue.
We in the UTCC wish to continue to be open to solidarity with the suburban cabdrivers.
We are currently involved in an historic organizing effort to unite all the Chicago cabdrivers under one umbrella to struggle for human rights, respect and dignity.
We know it is an uphill battle, not only among ourselves and our diverse community from so many different nations and cultures, but we also understand we are going up against the governmental and corporate interests that do not want to see us unite.
We are committed to this struggle, brother cabdrivers! And, more importantly, we are committed to the policy of inclusion of all of our cabdriver-brothers, whether suburban drivers in the Chicago area, to cabdrivers in cities all across the USA, and even to the cabdrivers in Serbia, Kuwait, and China!
We in the UTCC are well aware of the globalization of our workforce, and news reports from all over the world illustrate to us that cabdrivers everywhere suffer under the same kinds of oppressive work conditions and denial of basic human and workers’ rights by the governments and companies involved in controlling us.
We are reaching out to you, brother cabdrivers, because we are soon to be involved in some actions in the City of Chicago that will have far-reaching consequences for all of us! We are making a bid for power, for a voice, for a seat at the table when the City makes decisions that affect our lives, our income and our working conditions!
We believe it is our basic human right to have an opinion when such decisions are made, and to have our opinion heard and taken seriously. EVERY worker on the planet deserves such rights! This includes YOU, suburban cabdrivers!
