Desai’s Inconsistent Positions Show her as a True Hack – But Not for the Drivers…

http://www.bhairavidesai.com/desais-inconsistent-positions-show-true-hack-drivers/

Yesterday the City auctioned off 200 wheelchair accessible taxi medallions, some of which earned the highest bids on record for New York City taxi medallions. The community of advocates for people with disabilities was thrilled that the Taxi and Limousine Commission is putting more Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles on the streets, but Bhairavi Desai, head of the Taxi Workers Alliance is not pleased.

While Desai was supportive of the Borough Taxi initiative that will see 18 thousand green taxis enter the streets of New York, she feels that the added yellow wheelchair accessible medallions will add to the competition that drivers already have catching fares. Run those numbers and you may see what is more egregious; the added 200 WAVs or the 18 thousand new semi regulated borough taxis.

Consider that a taxi driver must be specifically licensed to operate a WAV, and that very few drivers have that training and certification. Then consider that when advocates have pushed for every single taxi driver to be trained to operate a WAV, so that anyone has the possibility of driving an accessible vehicle, Desai has fought back and maintained that drivers need not be trained unless they have a WAV taxi to drive. Then the numbers become clear, that the 200 WAV medallions will add very little actual competition to Desai’s drivers, the vast majority of whom are not licensed to operate the WAVs. Whereas the 18 thousand borough taxis that are entering the streets will cut into profits a great deal more.

Who is she kidding and why does Bhairavi Desai continue to reject the idea of training her drivers to operate wheelchair accessible vehicles?

Desai at a Funeral

http://www.bhairavidesai.com/desai-at-a-funeral/

There is a very sad story to be told about the head of the Taxi Workers Alliance, Bhairavi Desai. A while back, a taxi driver parked his car on a bridge and commit suicide. Distraught for some unknown reason, he felt this was his only way out. The owner of his taxi saw that the GPS unit had stopped on the bridge, but could not immediately know why. He consulted a colleague, who advised him to call the Taxi and Limousine Commission and the police.

They all converged on that taxi to discover that indeed, a driver chose to end his life in the face of what likely seemed to be insurmountable circumstances.

What came next showed the nature of the head of the TWA. The dispatcher, knowing that this man was a struggling immigrant from India, paid for the funeral and for the cost of sending his body back to India so that his family could bury him close to home and with the proper ritual his background demanded.

During the local ceremony for his friends and peers, Ms. Desai felt the need to send a private note to the dispatcher who had made the arrangements which read, “He killed himself because of you!”

That is how she supports her so called members.

The Counter Intuitive Bhairavi Desai

http://www.bhairavidesai.com/counter-intuitive-bhairavi-desai/#more-1

In a remarkable turn of expectations, the counter intuitive Bhairavi Desai sees no issue taking cash out of the hands of the drivers with the six cent phony health initiative, to pad her own organization’s coffers, but takes issue when the city sets up speeding cameras and fines drivers for doing something illegal and dangerous.

She said of speed cameras, they are “simply another tactic to raise revenue for the city.” “With a camera, who do you argue against?” she said.

So to hear Ms. Desai tell it, the problem with speeding cabbies is that they sometimes get caught.

Someone who gets paid to advocate for the well-being of cab drivers thinks that speeding is ok, that the fines are padding city coffers, but takes money senselessly when it is her TWA that is getting the benefit.

Immigrant Taxi Drivers Targeted in De Blasio’s New York

http://jewishvoiceny.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6328:immigrant-taxi-drivers-targeted-in-de-blasios-new-york&catid=113:oped&Itemid=296

Now that Mayor Bill de Blasio has taken office, he can reassure the nervous business community by curbing some of the election rhetoric, which some among his supporters have taken to new levels. Mayor de Blasio told his tale of two cities from an economic standpoint, suggesting that the gap between the wealthy and poor was vast and growing exponentially. Yet, during his inauguration the Sanitation Department’s chaplain, Rev. Fred Lucas Jr. compared New York City to a “plantation” when he delivered the invocation. The turn from a debate on economics to racism is indicative of how some will attempt to divide the people of this great city. The race-baiting began as Lucas said, “Free us from the shackles of partisan politics, political correctness and personal egos and agendas,” continuing, “Let the plantation called New York City be the city of God, a city set upon the hill, a light shining in darkness.” Is New York City a plantation where the poor are oppressed and enslaved and treated as black people were in the South prior to the Civil War? This is the atmosphere that Mayor de Blasio must oppose.

In today’s New York City, there is the taxi driver union’s Moses, Bhairavi Desai, the head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), an organization which represents approximately 15,000 NYC taxi drivers. Desai is the de-facto partner of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, and together they have conspired to take hard earned money from what is really the last vestige of easy-to-find work for new immigrants. They created what amounts to a multi-million dollar slush fund, supplied with a six cents per fare tax from every ride – about $600 per year. This is said to be for “disability insurance and health-care navigation services.”

There is no law governing this tax, but drivers cannot refuse it. Is that fair? Even worse is that the fund is overseen by Desai and her group, not by healthcare experts or investment advisors. Desai, who has always claimed to be a populist and has routinely decried capitalist values, has done what she claims big business does – takes advantage of the poor and naive. Cab drivers work very hard; many of them came to this country to pursue the great opportunities which exist here, but are not aware of their rights and due process.

When Desai was a presenter at the Brecht Forum’s 29th Annual Intensive Introduction to Marxism, she suggested capitalism was part of the destructive waves that “mark our times and even threaten life on this planet.” She further bewailed the “complicity of capitalism in perpetuating these ills.” Yet, she readily took the near $10M deal in exchange for total acquiescence to the former TLC Chairman and former Mayor Bloomberg’s poorly devised attacks on the taxi industry. A lawsuit filed by drivers objecting to this forced tax said: “In exchange for the forced $10 million in contributions to the NYTWA’s coffers, the drivers receive ‘healthcare’ services that include neither true healthcare coverage nor services that the drivers are force to pay for.”

Bhairavi Desai is also a devoted advocate for the “Cuba, Palestine, and El Salvador solidarity movements.” These “solidarity” movements are largely anti-American — and the types of places many of her member drivers run away from to pursue their American dream. Hard-working cab drivers of New York City, often immigrants, come to this country to make a better life for their families, not to rail against the greatness of capitalism, but to pursue it. They are subject to a policy that lines the leadership coffers at their expense, much like the reasons Marxism failed globally.

Mayor de Blasio should take the helm as a strong captain and put every New Yorker on notice that racism – and Marxism – is out of bounds.

Ronn Torossian is the Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of New York-based 5WPR/5W Public Relations which was named the 2013 PR Agency of the Year by the American Business Awards.

Bhairavi Desai and Biju Mathew - True Marxists.

http://www.bhairavidesai.com/desai_and_biju_mathew_true_marxists.html

There is an activist in New York named Biju Mathew who proudly endorses Marxism as a way of life. He is not only an American Marxist, and an activist at that, but he is the professor of the Business Administration department of all things, at New Jersey’s Rider University. He is also a contributor to Rethinking Marxism.

Not only is he anti-Capitalist, but he teaches those values at a business school to young minds trying to build towards careers and independence in life. Not surprising that he is the co-founder of the Forum of Indian Leftists and a huge advocate of fellow Indian Marxist Bhairavi Desai.

He published a book titled Taxi!: Cabs and Capitalism in New York City, which claims that taxi drivers are exploited. So it is no wonder that he is also an organizer of New York Taxi Workers Alliance, and it is no secret that he is a fan of the TWA’s antagonistic leader.

Desai finds a reason to fight against progress at every step. Today, studies show that credit card readers in cabs have increased fares and tips, yet when the City mandated credit card acceptance by taxi drivers, she argued sternly against it claiming it would be bad for drivers. Drivers get the fare and the tips while owners must pay the fees. She was against it simply because it was about capitalism and more business.
She advocated for a six cent tax per fare on her own drivers that fools drivers into thinking it funds access to the Affordable Care Act “This is a good thing,” said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the TWA. “This is going to give services to a population that’s been exploited.” Yet, the truth is more heinous, as the money goes to a more sketchy, “disability insurance and health-care navigation services.” Double speak for “bureaucracy”. As one cabbie stated, “I thought the 6 cents would go to health care.” It will actually cost drivers $10 million to $15 million annually and David Pollack, executive director of the Committee for Taxi Safety calls it a “scam.”

Like communism itself, the major flaw was that while it was intended to be for everyone, it was the members of the government who got rich and pampered off the backs of the workers. Marxism became a class system in which those who made and enforced the law lived one way and everyone else was subject to socialist ways. In this case, the TLC gave Bhairavi Desai and her Taxi Workers Alliance the charge of overseeing and administering this usurious and large fund. So who is getting rich and who is getting ripped off? Biju Mathew’s and Bhairavi Desai’s organization is hurting their drivers.

Who is Bhairavi Desai, The AFL_CIO's new Marxist Boss

http://www.bhairavidesai.com/who_is_bhairavi_desai.html

The AFL-CIO’s Embracing of Bhairavi Desai, Its New Marxist Union Boss

It starts with The Affordable Care Act – but maybe at the end of the day it’s really all about Marxism. As the National Taxi Workers Alliance (NTWA) recently became the fifty-seventh affiliate of the AFL-CIO, representing a portion of New York City cab drivers, it became the first time that independent contractors have become affiliated with America’s oldest labor federation.

As a result of this relationship the Executive Director of NTWA, Bhairavi Desai, has been elected to a seat on the AFL-CIO Executive Council. It is interesting to review who Desai is and where her interests lie. Media lauds her as a successful immigrant “organizer,” but simple research shows Desai actually an unabashed Marxist – not looking out for the worker, but trying to bring down a whole system by which these taxi drivers make their living. Under Desai’s leadership, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance which operated out of the radical New York Marxist School at the Brecht Forum from 1998 to 2003. In 2004, The Brecht Forum and the New York Marxist School listed Bhairavi Desai as a director of the group on its annual IRS filing.

The AFL-CIO’s appointment of her is promotes her Marxist ideals, and it is a continuation of the very un-American notion of class warfare. In addition, it’s flawed in its very nature. Taxi drivers make their money from those who can afford to ride with them, and Marxism seeks to make it so that there are much fewer people who can afford to use taxi services – thus putting many of them out of work if it ever came to be. So, should immigrant cab drivers work many back-breaking hours to further Marxism? Desai in interviews openly says she is “drawn to Marx”.

What is more heartbreaking is that she deceives her members. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance is poorly managed and had just $3,836 in debts – not assets - in its most recent filing with the IRS. This is the person trusted to manage America’s oldest union? Like true old fashioned communist ethics, Marxism seems to enable one to advance politically more than it does help any group of people.

Now, with that $3,836 debt, and the pain of life in Obama’s America, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission is now forcing taxi drivers to pay 6 cents per fare to Desai’s union to “pay for tutorials on ObamaCare.” Six cents per fare seems small, but it equals about $600 per year for most hard-working drivers and $18 Million in total annually to the TWA’s coffers from about 30,000 drivers. This tax WILL NOT pay for health insurance. David Pollack, executive director of the Committee for Taxi Safety, says “it is a scam.” The TWA and Desai get the money, the drivers get access to the same free information that New York State provides to everyone else as directed under the Obamacare Federal law. It’s a redundant service intended to enrich the TWA and its Marxist leader.

Imagine a Russian émigré cab driver explaining to his family that this tax going to a Marxist union leader – sounds like the old days in the USSR.

Ms. Desai also is not concerned about the legalities or obligations of being an American. In classic class-warfare language she speaks of the “fancy halls of Congress,” and believes law makers do not have the right to impose entry rules on immigrants. She is an organizer of communist May Day Parades, and an avowed Marxist will benefit with tens of millions of dollars that she will take in under the phony guise of Obamacare; she is using the marketing power of the Affordable Care Act to con the workers she is expected to protect. The fund will not buy anyone healthcare at all.

Look no further than the Brecht Forum for an explanation of what Desai believes.

The proud America of AFL-CIO has become a radical movement for Bhairavi Desai to falsely promote a program as being part of “Obamacare” in order to steal her members’ money.

Bhairavi Desai discusses Capitalism & Other Unnatural Disasters, in her Introduction to Marxism

http://www.bhairavidesai.com/desai_discusses_capitalism.html

In a funny twist on the anti-Capitalism debate, Bhairavi Desai was a presenter at the Brecht Forum’s 29th Annual Intensive Introduction to Marxism on July 13, 2007, that they were charging about $95 per person for the average worker to attend.

Not sure about most people, but $95 is hard to make for the average person, and even harder for most of the people who Desai claims to represent – the taxi driver.

The class she gave was introduced by suggesting that capitalism is part of the destructive waves that “mark our times and even threaten life on this planet”. It further suggests that the “complicity of capitalism in perpetuating these ills.”

Desai then introduces the class to Karl Marx' revolutionary critique of capitalism. Desai does this as she inked a secret deal with the TLC to fund her activities lavishly off the backs of the very workers Marx wanted to protect. Taking six cents, $600 dollars per year per driver, for a fund that is only useful to the Taxi Workers Alliance and its CEO is exactly the problem that workers should not have to face.

Under the guise of defending them from the evil capitalists, Desai has subtly ripped them off in a manner that is so egregiously deceptive. She represents the very image of what she claims to detest.