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.