Bhairavi Desai, New York Taxi Workers Alliance co-founder and executive director, has been organizing taxi workers since 1996. In 1998, she organized with a committee of taxi drivers to form the NYTWA. From 2013 to 2022, Bhairavi served on the AFL-CIO Executive Council, the first Asian-American voted onto the body. Born in India, Bhairavi migrated to the United States in 1979 at the age of 6 with her family and was raised in New Jersey. She previously worked in the battered women’s movement and in solidarity movements with the peoples of El Salvador, South Africa, Palestine and Nicaragua. The 28,000-member-strong NYTWA fights for justice, rights, respect, and dignity for New York City’s 200,000+ yellow cab, green car, and black car drivers, including drivers for Uber and Lyft. NYTWA campaigns have won over $450 million in stolen wages for Uber, Lyft and yellow cab drivers and over $400 million in debt forgiveness for yellow cab medallion owner-drivers. On the forefront of organizing workers stripped of employee rights, NYTWA has won Unemployment Insurance for Uber and Lyft drivers as employees, industry-specific minimum wage regulation that cover drivers time in between trips (empty time) and paid sick leave (via settlement Attorney General made with companies in an investigation which stemmed from a wage theft complaint filed by NYTWA.) In 2023, NYTWA’s Raise for All Drivers campaign culminated in strikes against Uber for blocking TLC’s regulation to raise driver pay in light of historic inflation. In 2021, after a 45-day 24-hours camp-put and a 15-day hunger strike, NYTWA secured a historic debt forgiveness victory to reduce debts carried by cabbies who own their medallion from an average $550,000 to $170,000 and backed by a city-guarantee replacing a personal guarantee. On January 28, 2017 NYTWA was the first union to take collective action against a Trump policy, striking at JFK Airport in protest of the White House’s hateful Muslim ban. In 2011, NY and Philadelphia TWA formed the National Taxi Workers Alliance, the 57th affiliate of the AFL-CIO and its first one of independent contractors. NYTWA is currently campaigning for an exemption for yellow cabs from a third congestion pricing fee, “just cause” protection for Uber and Lyft drivers against unfair firings, and a retirement fund for all drivers.