Dong seized on the episode to prove his point that drivers should be entitled to participate in decisions with owners -- in his case, officials of the Tongzhou District administration in Beijing. In addition, an acquaintance gave him copies of China's labor and collective enterprise regulations, which he interpreted as conferring on workers the right to elect representatives and consult with management about how a company should be run.
In 1998, after months of being brushed off by their bosses, Dong and his colleagues rented a room and held elections anyway. Of 75 employees, 62 attended, Dong recalled, and 61 of them voted for him to lead the new union. The official Worker's Daily newspaper reported favorably on the vote, raising the drivers' hopes.
Cabbie Dong Xin, far right, at a 1998 meeting where drivers voted overwhelmingly to organize an independent labor union. The government-owned firm then refused to recognize it, calling it illegal.
(Family Photo)
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But the company ownership, which by then had passed to another section of the Tongzhou District administration, refused to accept the group as a union, saying it was illegal. Over the next several years, officials sought out drivers in small groups and persuaded them to sign pledges to stay out of the union in exchange for keeping their jobs, according to Dong and another driver.
Most important, the company started its own branch of the official All-China Federation of Trade Unions. A company vice president and a local Communist Party functionary were named to head it.
A company official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the official union gives drivers all the representation they need. For instance, it recently handed out free rice to mark the upcoming Spring Festival, he said.
But the real result of the company's initiative, Dong said, was a "power network" in which company, local government and union officials work as allies, and against which the drivers have no power. "It's all decided by relationships," Dong complained.
Because most drivers are young and view their jobs as temporary -- and because rural immigrants been ready replacements -- they generally have proved unwilling to strike. "If we stop working, we won't eat," Dong said. "There are a lot of people who want to be drivers, and only a few taxis for them."
Li, the driver who participated in the 1996 protest, said he and his colleagues in another company tried to organize a strike over the buy-back prices the same year Dong tried to form his union. "But our strike failed in one day," Li recalled.
"I've heard about Dong Xin," said Zong Yongfeng, 43, a driver at another firm, the Sanyuan Taxi Co. "He is trying to establish a taxi driver union. Well, I don't think it will happen."
Although Dong's struggle so far has been fruitless, the issues have never been hard to define. According to a citywide rule, Beijing taxi drivers have to pay almost $600 a month for use of the car and insurance. They also have to pay for their gasoline -- about $8.50 a day -- and cover maintenance costs.
They receive a salary of roughly $37 a month plus the difference between what they take in and what they turn over. Usually, that amounts to around $300, according to conversations with several drivers. That puts them at the low end of the wage scale for urban workers in China.
Dong's goal is to negotiate a better deal, at least in his company. He would also like drivers to have a say on another issue that has arisen recently: the modernization of Beijing's taxi fleet.
The city's cheapest taxis -- small, wheezy vehicles whose passengers are charged about 25 cents a mile -- are to be phased out this year, Beijing municipal officials have decided. They are being replaced by newer, larger cars that will join other higher-priced taxis with rates of about 33 cents a mile.
Dong, who drove one of the inexpensive taxis, has turned in his old faithful and is awaiting delivery of a new vehicle. Until it arrives, he cannot work. Taking advantage of the extra time, he recently dropped by the district office that controls his company to hand in a letter. Under China's collective enterprise regulations, it affirmed, management has no right to make such changes without involving the workers.
"If China would just follow its own laws, written by the Communist Party, everything would be okay," he said. "But they don't."
Researcher Zhang Jing contributed to this report.
