New York Taxi Workers Alliance Executive Director Bhairavi Desai Among 100 Powerful Labor Leaders in New York City
- She is the only South Asian American on the list which highlights individuals whose efforts are largely or entirely within the five boroughs.
Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) has been featured among City & State’s New York City Labor Power 100, a list of labor leaders, city officials, immigrant advocates and other allies who are building momentum as they stand up for workers of all kinds. She is also the only South Asian American on the list which highlights individuals whose efforts are largely or entirely within the five boroughs.
City & State says Desai stands at the helm of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a union representing approximately 15,000 taxi drivers in New York City “advocating for a largely immigrant workforce.”
Gujarat-born Desai came to the U.S. with her parents at age 6 and grew up in Harrison, New Jersey.
Over the past two years, she has rallied with taxi workers for higher wages and debt relief for drivers who took out onerous loans to purchase taxi medallions. Last October, Desai and the union staged a 15-day hunger strike outside City Hall, which resulted in the Medallion Relief Program +, “an agreement between the city, the taxi drivers’ union, and lenders – taxi medallion debts will be capped at $200,000,” as reported by Gothamist.
On Aug. 30, Mayor Eric Adams announced that the program will be operational starting Sept. 19. “The city has also agreed to make $30,000 down payments on the loans and pick up the cost of the medallion loan if the owner defaults on it,” the Gothamist report said.
“This was nine long months. We wish it had gone much faster,” Desai told Gothamist. “One of the consequences of it taking so long is that the interest rate, which we had agreed to at 5 percent back in November, is now going to go up to 7.3 percent in light of inflation … but overall, it’s a tremendous gain for us.”
The Gujarat-born Desai came to the U.S. with her parents at age 6 and grew up in Harrison, New Jersey. She received a degree in Women’s Studies from Rutgers University. After graduation, she worked at Manavi, the South Asian women’s organization in New Jersey that worked with victims of domestic violence. She then moved to work for the rights of Asian workers by joining the Committee Against Asian American Violence in 1996. In 1998, she and others set up the NYTWA with an initial membership of 700 workers. She is also well known for efforts for social justice for Cuba, Palestine, and El Salvador solidarity movements.