By Naomi Gingold
Addis Gebreselassi is a taxi driver in Washington, DC. Like a lot of other immigrant drivers, he’s pretty highly educated — he was formerly an accountant. But he’s been driving a cab in the district for about 14 years.
Even though the job doesn’t get much repsect, he says it has its benefits: “You can work when you want it, not working when you don’t want it.”
The flexibility allows drivers to take care of their kids, take classes or even travel back to their home countries without wondering if they’ll lose their jobs.
In many ways, DC is an especially good place to set up shop as a cab driver. It’s the only major metro area in the US where a majority of drivers are independent owners and no company dominates the market. There are more than a hundred cab companies in DC, and, unlike in New York or Boston, licenses are pretty cheap.
But the DC Taxicab Commission controls pretty much everything drivers do, and drivers have long felt mistreated. “Some of the drivers get abused. They know in their hearts there is no fairness in this city,” Gebreselassie says, echoing complaints among drivers.
Audio: DC cab drivers fed up with ‘abuses’
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