NYTWA's Health Rights campaign aims to provide comprehensive medical screenings to over 20,000 uninsured taxi drivers and in the process, engage in a follow-up health needs assessment. The documentation will further support campaigns to establish a health and fitness center at the JFK Airport taxicab lot and an industry-sponsored health and benefits fund.

Of the city's 43,000 licensed taxi drivers, over half, or 26,000 are full-time, steady drivers. Eighty percent, or 20,800, of such steady drivers are reported to be uninsured. While our insufficient incomes and lack of collective bargaining remain institutional and legal obstacles toward establishing an industry-sponsored health and benefits fund, there is more than ample money in the industry to cover such benefits.

Taxi drivers serve close to one million New Yorkers and tourists 24-hours a day, including 15,000 riders from the city's two airports alone. Drivers are the ambassadors of the city, often the first and last New Yorker to greet a visitor and the other face of mass transit for the city that never sleeps or slows down. Despite our vast public contributions, drivers remain invisible behind the partition and their health and wellbeing, relegated secondary status to the profits of the industry. Through a multi-pronged program of legal research, media exposure, direct services, worker and family mobilization, and political advocacy, we aim within the next three years to establish a fund to serve the workers who serve the world.

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NYTWA health fairs at LaGuardia and JFK Airport taxi lots provided free medical screenings, legal advice and financial services to over 1,500 drivers.

All services were donated by an amazing team of hospitals, clinics, and individual practitioners: Amalgamated Bank, Amalgamated Life, American Cancer Society, AmeriChoice, Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV and AIDS, Bellevue Hospital Center, Central Medical Services of Westrock, Chopra Acupuncture, Columbia University School of Medicine, DREAM Project of CSAAH at NYU Medical School, Emblem Health, Friedman Diabetes, Healthplex, Inc., Koelher & Isaacs, Managed Care Consumer Assistance Program of Community Services Society, MetroPlus, Mt. Sinai, National Kidney Foundation, NYC Dept. of Health, NYC Lead Poisoning Prevention, Queens Hospital, Rutgers University, RX Outreach, and South Asian Council For Social Services.