AUTO: A DRIVING FORCE FOR CHANGE IN ALEXANDRIA VA

It was close to midnight on June 14, 2005. The Alexandria City Council was preparing to vote on new taxi industry regulations. The crowd had visibly thinned as the debate dragged on. But after waiting for 20 years, members of the Alexandria United Taxi-drivers Organization –AUTO –were willing to wait a few minutes longer. With them were other members of their parent organization, the Tenants and Workers Support Committee (TWSC), and their legal advisors from Advancement Project. Then, at last, the vote: Unanimous. Alexandria had a new taxi ordinance, ending the decades-long "sharecropper" relationship between the drivers and the cab companies. The largely immigrant taxi force from at least a dozen countries –spanning ethnic, religious and racial identities – had struck a blow for dignity and economic justice on the job. Click here to read the case study in its entirety.