This is a lightly revised version of a paper I wrote for a CUNY field internship with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. In it, I examine two issues of the NYTWA's newspaper Shift Change. I also reflect on the NYTWA's outreach approaches and its entry into the AFL-CIO as a member union.

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Labor and Workplace Studies Field Internship
Andres Puerta
Fall 2012
Stephen Cheng
Communications Paper
Introduction
The New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) maintains a media and public
relations presence via Internet and print. On the Internet, NYTWA keeps a Web site
(http://www.nytwa.org), maintains social media accounts, and sends out newsletters via
email.1 In print, NYTWA publishes and distributes a monthly newsletter called Shift
Change. These attempts at outreach are meant to keep the current membership informed
and to attract potentially new member-drivers. Through mass communication, NYTWA,
like many other unions, workers’ centers, and non-profit organizations, is able to
continue with its organizing activities.2 For the purposes of this discussion, I will analyze
two printed issues of Shift Change from the previous year, dated August 2011 and
September 2011.
NYTWA’s newspaper
During my time so far with NYTWA this term, I noticed that the organization
keeps stacks of back issues of Shift Change in its office, located on 28th Street and 5th
Avenue in Manhattan. Curious and intrigued, I took and read copies of previously
published newsletter issues. As just previously mentioned, two of the past issues I found
1 NYTWA maintains three social media accounts:Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Their respective Web
site addresses are: https://www.facebook.com/nytwa, https://twitter.com/nytwa, and
http://www.youtube.com/nytwa.
2 I should know from past experience. As a public relations intern for the Center for the Integration and
Advancement of New Americans in Astoria, Queens borough, I co-edited an online newsletter with my
then-internship supervisorCyrus Kazi. Brandworkers International, a workers’ center that I was with in the
previous year, 2011, also uses mass emails, a Web site, and social media (i.e. Twitter, Facebook) to reach
out to workers and activists.

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are from August and September 2011. I did not speak with staff members I know at
NYTWA’s office about the newspaper, so I cannot write about the publication’s
background such as how it came into being and evolved since then.
But, just to make an educated guess, I imagine that NYTWA may have started
editing, publishing and distributing its newsletter since 1998, the year of its founding, at
the earliest. Otherwise, Shift Change may have begun publication at some time after
NYTWA’s establishment. I have not been able to find any issues from October,
November, or December 2011, nor have I found any issues from this year.
Conceivably, NYTWA may have temporarily or permanently stopped publication of Shift
Change in order to concentrate on other activities such as organizing and lobbying.
Furthermore, from what I can see at the office, the staff members are busy enough
assisting individual taxi drivers with issues such as tickets and calling drivers about
membership status (membership lasts for one year and therefore renewals are annual), so
therefore the production of Shift Change is most likely not a top priority.
As for the copies of the Shift Change issues themselves, they cover specific key
and relevant events that have occurred or will occur for NYTWA and its constituency.
Each copy consists of eight pages, with a cover story and corresponding photography and
text on the first page, a membership information section and sign-up form on the seventh
page, and a final informational column and masthead (or more precisely in the latter case,
the names of the executive director and organizing committee and staff members) on the
eighth and last page.
Judging from the two issues of Shift Change that I currently have, the cover
stories of the August and September 2011 issues deal with key victories (and other

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notable events in NYTWA’s ongoing history). The rest of the Shift Change issues include
information on other NYTWA activities and issues that concern (or would and/or should
concern) NYTWA members and undoubtedly non-NYTWA member-drivers as well. For
the most part, the primary function of the newsletter is informational.
What messages does Shift Change convey? What are the target audiences for Shift
Change?
Shift Change brings messages that carry a theme of ongoing struggle. So far as
leftist and trade union messages (even mythology, although I do not mean to sound
critical or sarcastic) to the public go, the notion of struggle, especially class struggle, is
nothing new. It has been a staple motif, although in the context of the United States’ labor
and working-class history, organizers and other leaders (for instance, Samuel Gompers in
the mid-to-late 19th century) in the “business union” mold have played down the notion
of class struggle in favor of promoting a labor-capital accord. In concrete terms, the
latter, which one can also refer to as a “labor peace,” is usually achieved by way of
solely, even exclusively, focusing on “bread and butter” issues such as wages, hours, and
working conditions. In the mid-to-late twentieth century, a virtually national labor-capital
accord was achieved through the “Fordist social contract.”
Not surprisingly, then, against the backdrop of the aforementioned history, the
rhetoric of class struggle, much less its practical importance as a priority, became less
salient.3 Instead, the preferred socioeconomic category is “middle class” and the survival
3 However, none of what I have written means that no actual class struggles occurred in US history. Rebel
Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s (Verso, 2010), edited by
Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner, and Cal Winslow, contains multiple historical accounts on US working-
class struggles during the 1960s and 1970s. More information is available here:
http://www.versobooks.com/books/282-rebel-rank-and-file. I should also mention that Brandworkers
International takes the rhetoric and the very concept of class struggle seriously.

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of this “blue-collar middle class.”4 NYTWA, at least in its publications, is an exception to
the rule insofar that it does emphasize struggle. In a set of public remarks delivered at the
AFL-CIO Executive Council Meeting on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 in Washington,
D.C., NYTWA’s executive director Bhairavi Desai speaks about the importance of “class
conscious unionism” for reaching out to the “working class and working poor.”5 Clearly,
for Desai class-conscious trade unions (and workers’ centers) are important and active
components of the class struggle. Whether the rhetoric and stance of Desai and the
NYTWA can coexist with the views, policies, and positions of the AFL-CIO (of which
NYTWA is a member organization) is an open question.
However, in the specific case of NYTWA, the general message of the
organization and its newsletter is definitely aimed at an appropriate target audience: taxi
drivers. In the contemporary economy, taxi drivers, legally and technically classified as
“independent contractors,” are among the most poorly compensated workers. When
Desai speaks of “class conscious unionism” and the “working class and working poor,”
she is speaking about a dire truth concerning the working and living conditions of a
marginal fraction of the workforce.
Concluding reflections
With all the above under consideration, I can conclude that the newsletter is
aimed at member and non-member taxi drivers alike. While the cover page of the August
2011 newsletter issue emphasizes the successful conclusion of an agreement on a livery
Bill, which NYTWA interprets as a victory for taxi drivers, the September 2011 issue
highlights the AFL-CIO’s awarding of a national organizing committee charter to
4 No need for me to cite sources here, but I can certainly recall the self-identification of being “middle
class” among trade union members, conventionally known as “working people.”
5 See pages 4 and 5 of the Shift Change (August 2011).

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NYTWA for the purpose of organizing taxi drivers throughout the country. The
membership sign-up form in the back of each issue helps too in attracting new members,
should taxi drivers who have previously never heard or read of NYTWA find themselves
impressed with the contents of Shift Change. Since NTWA cannot really undertake
contract campaigns because of the “independent contractor” status of taxi drivers, it
instead launches organizing campaigns. The success of the latter is reflected in the front
pages of the two Shift Change issues that I have beside me as I write. The focus of
NYTWA’s newsletter cannot be any more apt. As a mere research intern associated with
the CUNY system, I have no substantive suggestions for change.