Houston & Texas News



May 8, 2008, 11:01PM
Airport badge rules begin for cabbies
Drivers comply, for the most part, but lawsuit lingers


By LESLIE CASIMIR
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

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Airport workers wasted no time Thursday and began asking cabbies to produce the newly required airport badges or for proof that they have already applied for one — just a week after a judge granted the drivers an extension to get the hotly contested photo IDs.

"What's going on?" asked a Taxis Fiesta driver, who pulled up to the taxi staging area at George Bush Intercontinental, where only four lanes of cars were lined up. There are usually 12 lanes of waiting taxis.

"Do you have an airport badge?" replied a uniformed female airport worker. "Just show your badge."

He complied. Those who didn't have one were asked to turn around and apply for the badge across the street at an administrative building, drivers said. Some did. Others made U-turns and didn't return.

"I told them I don't have one and that I really don't want to get one," said Adane Alemu, a board member of the Houston Taxi Association who has been challenging the ID badges — a first of its kind for cabbies in this nation. "They're making up their own rules and are violating our civil rights."

Last week the taxi association filed a lawsuit against the Houston Airport System and staged a spirited protest with a caravan of honking cabs. U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas ordered the city to extend its compliance deadline, but she did not go as far as to bar the airport system from starting the rare screening process that is conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Originally, all taxi drivers who wished to make airport pickups were supposed to have the badges by April 30. The judge brokered a deal giving the cabdrivers one more week to apply and a month after that to start wearing the free badges.

The lawsuit claims that the drivers — mostly black, mostly immigrant — have unequal protection under the badge, requiring them to be vetted under the same stringent rules as airport workers, but barring the pool of independent workers access to basic airport facilities such as the terminals' restrooms and restaurants.

"The cabdrivers stay in an inferior staging area where they have to go to the bathroom outdoors (in portable toilets) and if they want to dine, they have to eat from a truck," said Reginald McKamie, the association's attorney. "The cabdrivers they're not terrorists but the presumption is that they are — they just wanted to be treated just like everyone else."

In addition, McKamie says the airport badge can be taken away from a driver without an appeal, providing them with no rights to due process.

Marlene McClinton, spokeswoman for the Houston Airport system, said that they are working on developing an appeals procedure within two weeks to provide to the judge in the case.

Houston's 4,000 cabbies already are required to pass FBI background checks to get city-issued operating licenses. Airport officials have said the badges are to ensure passenger safety and have nothing to do with race or nationality.

Hired chauffeurs already are required to wear badges and, once cabbies get their cards, shuttle bus drivers are next.

As of January, airport officials said 1,184 cabbies had applied for the badge and a few dozen were denied.

leslie.casimir@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 66246.html