Prejudice, discrimination, unwanted, scream cabbies.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: Cabbies are in trouble in California, from English tests they are flunking to body odor tests that have them screaming prejudice and discrimination against immigrants.
The car service industry, dominated by immigrants from South Asia and Africa in major cities in the US, is facing a new test in San Diego which is making them not only squirm in discomfort every time they are subjected to it, but also have raised their hackles at the pointed reference to it all: body odor test.
The Associated Press reported that body odor is among 52 criteria that officials at San Diego International Airport use to judge taxi drivers.
Anyone who flunks the smell test is told to change clothes before picking up another customer. Leaders of the United Taxi Workers of San Diego union say the litmus perpetuates a stereotype that predominantly foreign-born taxi drivers smell bad. A 2013 survey of 331 drivers by San Diego State University and Center on Policy Initiatives found 94 percent were immigrants and 65 percent were from East Africa, said the AP report.
At the heart of the odious test is also the way it’s conducted, which have left cabbies incensed.
There is no scientific equipment, like a breath analyzer test used by police to determine DUI. Instead it’s left to the judgment of the human nose. A cursory sniff by officials when talking to cab drivers at a ‘staging area’ is all that sometimes is needed for the cabbies to be condemned, and lose their self-esteem in the process.
Drivers rightly point out that if one were to check the cars, stench, if any, may emanate from the front or the back – to suggest passengers may be the culprits too. But a sniff to determine their personal body odor?
The officials have this to lay out for their smell determination test: “Taxi drivers are often the first impression that travelers receive when arriving into San Diego, and we want to encourage a positive experience.”
The AP report said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the 18,000-member New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said her face reddened with anger and dismay when she learned about the San Diego practice. She suggested the airport leave it to customers to complain about body odor.
“What a dehumanizing way to treat your workers,” she said.
If it’s odor in San Diego that’s got under the collar of the cabbies, it’s a language impediment in Sacramento, that have them scuttled.
The Sacramento Bee reported last month that the cabbies are up in arms over the city’s requirement that they prove they understand English at a basic level.
Sacramento now require drivers to take written tests when seeking permit renewals. But some drivers are complaining that the test is tougher than they had been led to believe and that it is being used by the city to weed drivers out. It’s also about drivers knowing how to talk and understand English, but not able to speak and write the language.
“The city said it is a very simple test,” Kazman Zaidi of the Sacramento Taxi Cab Union, was quoted as saying, by the Bee. “But they lied to us. It is totally different. It is very hard.”
He added: “Poor people cannot read and write. They can speak English and understand English. There is a lot of frustration.”
The two-part exam, which combines a 15-question written test to determine understanding of city codes that taxi business deal with- in the first week, only 15 of the 28 who took the test passed it – and a computer-driven test on English proficiency, money transactions and other business practice topics, and takes up to 11/2 hours, seems harder than a driving test exam. More cabbies, however, passed the latter exam – with 21 of the initial 28 cabbies passing.
Cabbies can take the test numerous times, if they flunk it. Question, is, do they really need to?