Leveraging liminality: how San Diego taxi drivers used their precarious status to win reform

ABSTRACT

Using a case study in San Diego, California, we explore the complexities of precarious employment for taxi drivers. We seek to answer the following question: how do the ambiguities of taxi drivers’ status as independent contractors shape drivers’ work conditions and opportunities for resistance? Our study is based on 331 surveys, 20 in-depth interviews, participant observation, and policy analysis over two years. While drivers were objectively disempowered by the independent contracting designation, lacking both the protections granted employees and the prerogatives of ownership, they were empowered by the alliances this duality facilitated. Drivers used their marginal identities as workers and as entrepreneurs to their advantage in their campaign for reform. This case presents an alternative narrative to previous research, which generally highlights how independent contractors either accept their status in exchange for flexibility or resist by claiming misclassification. The immigrant taxi drivers in our case study actively resisted, not by pursuing recognition as employees, but rather by successfully seeking the full rights of business owners.