The Other Side of Midnight (6 page)

“Are you serious?”

“We got to sample this before I go back to the hotel.”

We went up to Signal Hill, and I took a right by Deadman's Pond. We went in where there's a view of the harbour. “Down around the rocks” is what we used to call it. I put two cigarette papers together, rolled them up as thick as my thumb. “Do you really want to smoke this?”

“C'mon,” she said.

We were having a puff and handing it back and forth, and then she wanted me to meet the other two: “Come in and meet my friends. One is from Nova Scotia and the other is from Montreal.” That's why they were speaking French. I went in and sat down. They had wine in there, all kinds of drinks, and then she hauled out the bag of dope.

The music was going, they were laughing, carrying on, and they were starting to get pretty damn frisky, and I got right paranoid. “I got to go back to work,” I said. “That's it for me—I'm gone.”

If I told some of the younger drivers the stories I'm after telling over the years they wouldn't believe a word of it.

It used to be fun and enjoyable to drive a cab. Maybe that hasn't changed for the younger guys out on the road. Maybe I'm just out of the loop where I'm older. Michael O'Brien started down there with us, and he would tell you the same thing. He had his hair down over his back, too—real long hair—and gold on every finger and around his neck. Remember that show that used to be on television with the fast car that could talk,
Knight Rider
? That's what we used to call each other, “The Knight Riders.” If you worked nights, that's what you were called. That atmosphere is gone. As far as I'm concerned, taxiing is only good for a nineteen or twenty-year-old.

Concrete Jungle

Michael, driving and dispatching for thirty-six years

I used to love for a Friday night to come. That was your money night. Saturday night was the same way. But you didn't have the cluster on George Street like you do now. We'd go and park at the Bella Vista. We'd go park at the Steamer. We'd go park at the Traveler's Inn. The clubs were spread out. You only had so many taxis this end of town, and only so many taxis that end of town.

It's like a concrete jungle down there now. Everybody is let out at one time and, you know yourself, you got thousands of people on George Street between two and four in the morning. The more decks they put on, the more buildings they open up, the worse it gets. Ten years ago, Shamrock City was a jewellery store. Now it's a bar. All that along there on Water Street, the Post Office, what is it now? Dooley's. The list goes on and on. Years ago, they had the El Tico and a couple little small bars. Mostly there were department stores and restaurants. In around the corner, you had Gosse's. What could Gosse's hold? Probably twenty people. Sterling's was the same way. If you had ten people in there she was full. Some of the bars down there now can hold 1,000 people, I'm sure.

The only thing you had to contend with was a guy not paying you, or something like that. If you went to his house the next day, he gave you your $20. There are guys in this town that had hard names when I was taxiing. I know they don't mind me mentioning them: the Drukens, the O'Driscolls, the Mahers, the Leonards. If they didn't have any money or were that drunk they didn't know they were even in the cab you'd just bring them up to their door and they'd go on in. The next day, you'd get the money off them at their house, or you might see them on the street somewhere.

I never had a problem where I had to call the police. I was never assaulted. I never had any problems like that. If you went over to Gosse's or the Queen's Tavern, or any of the older clubs, and got a guy who you figured was too drunk you'd just leave him there with the bartender. But nine chances out of ten you were after driving him home within the last week, and you knew where he lived. Now his wife might not be very happy about it. I brought a guy up from Gosse's to Holloway Street. He had two bottles of rum with him. I opened the door, but she wouldn't let him in. She broke the two bottles of rum right there on the sidewalk. She wouldn't let him in, and he was no good to me. I ended up taking him back downtown and having the Constabulary look after him.

Anyone you interview in this city, anyone at all, will tell you it'd be worth it to sit on the roof of City Hall and look out and see what goes on Friday and Saturday night. If I'm coming up and I got you and your wife in the car and there's three or four guys who wants to get in with you, they're hauling open the doors, they're jumping up on the bonnet, they're holding onto the bumper.

That's why I'm dispatching. I'm too old for that kind of stuff. It's not fit down there—not fit.

Dead Time

Financial Hardships

“One thing about being a cabbie is that you don't have to worry
about being fired from a good job.”

– Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsh),
Taxi

“Neither the company nor the union gives a damn about us. As
far as they're concerned, we're machines—as wretched as the cabs.”

– Lucky Miller, New York City cab driver,
from Studs Terkel,
Working

“We are all born poor.”

– Rise Mickenber,
Taxi Driver Wisdom

In the public's mind, the St. John's taxicab driver personifies both the real and the imagined ills of North America's oldest city. Whereas their habitat was once defined by the harbour and the railway station, it now encompasses the back lot of the airport, Water Street and Adelaide Street, and dozens of strip malls. These are often lonely and sometimes violent places. The popular image of the St. John's taxicab driver is blue-collar and itinerant, if not criminal and low-life. But their backgrounds are often working class and lower middle-class. Unlike most major mainland cities where upwards of 50 per cent of taxicab drivers are from predominantly Muslim countries, the St. John's taxicab industry remains largely ethnically homogenous: students, pensioners and the sons and daughters of taxicab drivers. Many are career drivers; few are women. Some, let go from other work, are too old and under- trained to re-enter the workforce, and they drive a taxicab as a last resort.

The taxicab industry, once a collection of family-run and neighbourhood stands, at its peak, in the years following the Second World War, counted forty-one taxicab stands operating within the city limits. Twenty-five years later, that number had dropped to thirty. Now there are just seven. What happened in the intervening years? As operating costs soared, older drivers and small fleets left the industry and sold their taxicab licences to larger stand owners. The 1970s also saw the emergence of the “broker,” an independent contractor or middle-man, who had acquired small fleets and then leased cars to individual drivers for an even share of the profits. By the early 1990s, a handful of companies had grown to encompass three quarters of cab licences.

As in many other municipalities, leasing doomed many vulnerable drivers to a kind of wage slavery. At the end of the day, drivers are paid 50 per cent of whatever has accumulated on the meter, minus gas expenses. This was an obvious attraction to fleet owners and brokers because it ensured daily receipts and removed the spectre of rising gasoline and insurance costs. Individual taxicab owners, generally referred to as “independent operators,” became subject to exorbitant and unregulated weekly stand fees. Although the 1990 Commission of Inquiry into the St. John's Taxi Industry found that stands were making only a modest return on their investments, the taxicab industry is largely cash-based. The Taxi Bylaw requires daily income sheets to be kept, but those rules are not strictly enforced.

To maintain a competitive environment while offering the public an adequate level of service, the city has periodically capped the number of available operator licences. Currently, there are 364. Although there is no uniform policy in place to determine the appropriateness of the number—municipal documents indicate one taxicab per 500 residents—it is reviewed by the Taxi Commission annually. Each stand owner must first purchase a stand licence that approves the operation of the stand and sets space requirements for its taxis. While the city has never restricted the number of taxi- cab stands, it has limited the number of parking spaces (referred to in the industry as “slots”) to 402. While this regulation, in theory, offers owner operators some flexibility to move between stands, the reality is much different. The Commission of Inquiry determined that the regulations unfairly bind an independent operator to a stand, and that the opportunity to move was “exceptionally small and in most cases not practical.” One taxicab driver spoke candidly about switching stands: “What's better, the devil you know, or the devil you don't know?”

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.