Stand owners maintain that they play the necessary role of disciplinarian. In a brief prepared for St. John’s City Council in June 1987, the United Taximen’s Association, a now extinct stand owners’ advocacy group, stated that this aspect of ownership “ensured good taxi service to the public.” However, drivers are sometimes subject to the removal of equipment, arbitrary dismissal and blackballing, or collusion amongst stand owners. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the city permitted each stand to hire up to three part-time drivers. Now the taxicab industry depends upon a steady stream of these drivers, hired at the discretion of the stand owner, broker or independent operator, and whose income and record of employment often goes undocumented. This lack of regulation and entry level training encourages low standards of employment and a seemingly limitless pool of drivers operating around the clock.
Inadequate car maintenance is another serious problem. Pressured by high insurance premiums and other exorbitant start-up costs, few taxicab drivers buy new cars and many are stretched beyond 300,000 kilometres. In fact, high mileage automobiles are often purchased at auction, and regular maintenance is sometimes curtailed because of slim profit margins. Poor suspension and bad brakes are not uncommon. One driver explained, “The cars are complete junk. The owners don’t care what happens to nothing. They got to get their cars moving.”
The taxicab industry was once administered by a full-time inspector. But the bylaw sets only minimum standards for the conduct of drivers and the acceptance of vehicles as taxicabs. Currently, two enforcement officers are responsible for issuing licences, investigating complaints and ticketing bylaw infractions for the Department of Building and Property Management. With limited manpower and resources, it’s often difficult to ensure that stand owners and brokers are meeting basic standards. This invariably affects the quality of service provided to the public.
St. John’s taxicab drivers have made several attempts to mobilize their ranks. The United Taxi Drivers’ Association, formed in 1985, had as its stated purpose to “promote the welfare of the members of the association with a view to enhancing their business” and to “examine problems pertaining to the operation of taxis.” They had hoped to create a balance of power between stand owners, brokers and taxicab drivers. But taxicab drivers have always been difficult to organize. The highly competitive nature of the industry is a dividing force. Drivers are also physically separated from one another, creating an isolating work environment. Co-Op Taxi Ltd. emerged as a response to the failure of the association to force real change upon what taxicab drivers saw as an “industry in crisis.” Owned and operated by taxicab drivers, their goal was to help reshape their public image and, through a cost-sharing model, increase their constantly diminishing profits.
Failing to find consensus and solutions, beginning in 1989, the city conducted a Commission of Inquiry into the taxicab industry. The Commission spent a year consulting drivers, brokers and stand owners, as well as the public, and reviewing the appropriateness of the bylaw. The final report, released in late 1990, dealt with issues that had dogged the industry for decades. Improving the quality of drivers, reversing the system of servitude to stand owners, and clarifying licence ownership were given top priority. Council considered a number of changes: returning the taxicab inspector to a full-time position, beefing up its role as a regulator and starting to test taxicab drivers’ skills and knowledge of the city and safety. After two months, The Evening Telegram reported that only one recommendation had been implemented. The city continued to drag its feet, and little was ever accomplished.
For decades, St. John’s taxicab drivers have been pushed to the fringes of the working poor and alienated from other working class professions. They are financially marginalized by what the Commission of Inquiry defined as “economic servitude,” employment uncertainty and poor working conditions. Their wages remain static while gasoline and insurance prices continue to rise with inflation. Although there have been attempts at reform, little has changed since the late 1970s when brokers became the dominating force in the industry. During his mid-twenties, one informant drove a taxicab while he attended trade school. He said, “I got tired of sitting in the car for hours on end making next to nothing.” It’s a common theme. Amongst the drivers interviewed, long hours are a necessary part of a job that more often than not pays less than minimum wage. The problem is “dead time,” the tiresome minutes and hours between jobs. If a driver starts his shift at six in the morning, it’s not uncommon to have had only three or four customers by noon, which amounts to less than $100.
Sacrifices
Jacob, driving for two years
In the overflow parking lot at the St. John’s International Airport, upwards of thirty cab drivers wait their turn to head down and park in front of the entrance. Only three cars are allowed there at any given time. They all hope for the “big score,” a run that will take them out of the city and onto the highway. A sheet is provided to them by their employer and held to the sun visor with elastic, or stuffed in the glove compartment, which lists prices corresponding to communities. One driver brought a passenger to Corner Brook through a snowstorm for more than $1,000. But those kinds of jobs are a rarity—one in a million.
Driving a taxicab is not all that glamorous. Jesus Christ, in eight hours, I’ve made $63. At the end of my shift, after I gas up, I get half of what’s left over. Do the math on that. I’ll get about twenty-seven bucks for twelve hours work. For me, it passes the time. I’m a people person; I like people. When I went to university, my psychology course, which I passed, opened my mind to a whole new way of thinking. I like driving. It gives you something to do. It beats going to jail. It beats breaking the law.
The only people who are making any kind of money driving taxicabs are the guys who own their own cars. Guys like me who work for the company, the only person we’re making rich is the man who owns the company. That’s why they can have ninety cars on the road. If you’re content to come out and pass away some time and bring home forty or fifty bucks on a good day, then that’s okay. But it can be very depressing, this business, especially with all the cars out on the back lot here now. There’s nothing on the set. There’s no one phoning in. You might as well sit here and wait for a job that’s going to Gander. I’ve been out eight hours, and I’ve got $23 on the meter, plus two twenties. Like I said, sixty-three bucks. I’ll get down to the front of the airport, and the customer will probably say, “I’m heading to the Comfort Inn.” You sat for three hours, and he wants to go to the Comfort Inn, which is right there, for ten bucks. And then they bitch about the price. If the radio is going, there’s no sense even being at the airport. You’ve been sitting in my cab for ten minutes. The radio is working, and you haven’t heard anything come out of it, have you? Not very much. So you sit, and you wait.
I make enough money to pay my rent and to pay my bills. I drive a school bus, and that helps. I’m separated from my daughter’s mother, and I pay child support. I’m also paying for a couch so my daughter has some place to sit. The old couch was garbage. I had to buy something else and I’m not even living with them now. But I still went over to Easyhome. I’m paying forty bucks a week so my little girl can have some place to sit. I eat once a day. That’s the truth. Yesterday, I had a slice of pizza at about two-thirty in the afternoon. I haven’t eaten since. Sometimes you have to sacrifice.
Raising a Family
Mark, driving for twenty-one years
I got two little girls. One is thirteen, and the other is eight. My oldest daughter is in Grade 7, and my youngest is in Grade 3. To get them ready for back to school I had to punch in a lot of hours. You don’t know from one day to the next what you’re going to make. You could make $400; you could make twenty bucks. There’s no set pay at this. That’s about the worst thing about the job. You’re gone from home a fair bit, too. But I try to be home as much as I can. I’ll go home for a couple of hours here and there in the evening to spend a bit of time with the family.
&n
bsp; Typically, I do six days a week. I usually come to work at about eleven o’clock in the morning and work until probably two or three that night. You’re looking at fifteen hours a day six days a week. That’s eighty to ninety hours per week. By the end of the week, I’ve almost always made the same amount as the week before. It usually works out that way—there’s not a lot of variation. Some days you might have less; other days you might have more. I got two kids and a mortgage. Taxiing is not a gig where you can go home at five. You got to stay out until you make your money.
My family understands. They’d like it if I was home more, but they know that’s not how it’s going to be. I simply can’t afford to be home more. These days it’s a challenge for anyone with kids.
My father has been driving a cab for forty-five years. When I was growing up, he was gone a lot, too. He used to come home when he could, but he wasn’t there every evening. I just remember he was gone almost all the time working. I don’t know if it wasn’t as busy then and it was harder to make a dollar. I haven’t asked him. It’s not a conversation that we’ve ever had. I was thirteen when my parents split up. So he lost a relationship over taxiing. I’ve thought about changing jobs. I was an electrician for a while before I started at taxiing. I did an electrical course at trade school back in the early ‘90s, but there was no work. That’s when I started driving at Valley Cabs. For a span of about four years, I worked as a dispatcher for a courier company. That was a nine-to-five job. But I struggled with the routine. After doing this, I found I didn’t want to be bound to an office.
I manage to leave my job in the driveway when I go into the house. I’ve been married fifteen years, and I don’t think I spent ten minutes talking to my wife about this. It’s just something I don’t talk about. It’s not something that interests her, and there’s stuff that goes on that you got to deal with that I don’t want her knowing about. With the girls, they don’t usually ask too many questions. They know the hours I punch, and they know that this is Daddy’s job. But that’s the extent of it. It’s not something that I ever get into. I’m not sure it’s something I actually want to discuss with my daughters.
I mean, all you got to do is turn on the news to see St. John’s is starting to get some bigger problems with crime and things like guys getting held up and assaulted.
A couple of years ago, I picked up three young guys, and they wanted to get dropped off at a gas station. They went in and came out with a bag of cigarettes, a couple cartons of cigarettes. I had to take them to another location, and they went in and came out with money, or whatever. They used a stolen credit card to buy the cigarettes. I didn’t realize this until about halfway through that something wasn’t adding up, something wasn’t right.
I just didn’t feel safe with these guys. It’s just one of the times you get a bad feeling. I’m at this a while, and it’s not often that I get spooked. One of the guys in the back never said a whole lot, but he was watching me. I thought, If any trouble happens, this is the guy who is going to cause it.
I’ve never mention anything like that to my wife.
Self-Discipline
Johnny, driving for three years
When you drive a taxi you can leave whenever you want. You can take your breaks whenever you want. You got to have a lot of self-discipline; you got to put the hours in. If you happen to leave you might miss out on one of the corporate jobs. We drive for Cougar Helicopters. You might hook a run with one of those guys going out to Bay Roberts. That’s a $300 fare. But you got to wait that extra hour sitting down doing nothing. In the winter, there are your slow months. March and April gets pretty scanty. You’re hunched over in the front seat, you got gloves and a hat on, and you’re blowing on your hands trying to stay warm. You run the car for ten minutes, and you turn it off for half an hour. You turn it on for ten minutes, and turn it off for half an hour. So you’re steady starting and stopping.
I quit doing day shifts because I was out one Monday and made $25 for an eight hour shift. I had to halve that with buddy who owned the car and then put gas in. You want to say, “I’m quitting this right now.” But you got to take the good times with the bad. During the last George Street Festival, I made $2,800 in seven days.
The State of the Economy
Allen, driving for twenty-two years
Whatever happened to the blue collar jobs, the middle-class jobs? You either make ten to twelve bucks an hour, or you make $30 an hour. There’s no twenty to twenty-five dollar an hour jobs out there. There is no blue collar, middle-class jobs out there, anymore. The state of our economy is fucked. I was making $50,000 a year. My employer made my job redundant because he could hire someone fresh out of school for $25,000 a year because they have less salary expectations, as opposed to me who is twenty years older. The whole concept of society here in Newfoundland is that you’re either poor or you’re rich. There’s no in between.
All They Were Interested in Was Eating
Charlie, driving for thirty-seven years
Back in the ‘80s, all the old guys who were sixty and seventy grew up during the Depression. In the 1930s, if you’re twenty-something years old, what’s your biggest priority in a depression?
Putting food on the table.
You’re fucking right, buddy. You got to eat. If you got a family, they got to eat. What do you do? You worked. Do you get an education? No, sir. That’s the last thing on your mind. You’re in Grade 2? Get out and go to work! And there are guys who will tell you that. For the guys who grew up in the Depression, all they were interested in was eating.
So back in the ‘80s, these old guys were driving around town. They knew the streets, not by their name, but by location. You see what I’m getting at? They knew where New Cove Road was. They knew where it started, and they knew where it ended. But they couldn’t read the sign.
It might’ve been May 24th. It was a holiday weekend. I remember it was a cold night, but there was no snow, or anything. The dispatcher sends this old guy up to Cherry Hill Road. It was just up from New Cove Road there. I think it was maybe number sixteen, or something.
The dispatcher gives out a few more jobs over the set. About a half an hour goes by. He said, “I got that lady on the phone. Are you up on Cherry Hill Road?”
“Oh, yes,” the driver said.
“Well, I got her on the phone, and she can’t see you.”
This driver got little or no education—he can’t read. “Well, I’m here.”
“Are you out in front of sixteen?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I’m out in front of sixteen.”
“That lady can’t see you. You got to be on the wrong street.”
“No,” he said, “I’m not.”
“Go to the end of the street, and spell the street name.”
A minute later: “Go ahead, Bobby. I’m here.”
“Spell out what’s on the sign.”
“S-T-O-P.”
Cut Off at the Knees
Leonard, driving for four years
Few of the taxi drivers admitted to being behind the wheel by choice. For them, there is a lingering resentment for the life they once had or the possible future that slipped from their grasp: the agricultural plant manager, a victim of downsizing; the assembly line worker too broke up and worn down to keep working. One said, “There are firemen and teachers at it. There are a lot of retired people driving taxis. There are unemployed tradesmen at it. When a taxi hauls up to your door, you don’t know who is going to be your driver. It could be the most educated man you’ve ever met, or the lowest form of human life.”
Are you familiar with the Cameron Inquiry? I was the witness who had the mysterious piece of equipment. They wanted to know how I got it and what had happened to it. Apparently, there was a computer in the machine with patients’ records. But like I told them, I didn’t even know about the computer until I saw it on the news. For years, I worked on my own, selling and repairing new, used and refurbished medical equipment. Basically, anything and eve
rything with a plug. I was generally referred to as a “field service technician,” “field service representative,” or “field service engineer.” Take your pick—they all mean the same thing. I wasn’t making a big lot at it, but I was making a damn size more than I am taxiing.
Everything that Eastern Health got rid of, I was the last stop before the dump. What you got to understand is when a machine became redundant and had to be replaced, they would keep the old one around for several months to make sure that the new one was working. When they determined their new machine was working properly, the old one got tossed. If I didn’t take it, it was going to the dump. Say your wife wants to renovate your kitchen. After you get it half done, she says, “We need to get a new fridge and stove.” What do you do with your old fridge and stove? You check to see if any relatives want it for their cabin, or something like that. Two weeks later, the fridge and stove is still sitting in the kitchen. Then the wife decides she’s going to throw the things out. That’s exactly what they used to do in the hospitals.
The Other Side of Midnight Page 5