Many minicab workers are used to racism and danger, but worked through the last year facing a new, invisible threat
Shaz Saleem first started helping out at his father’s taxi firm when he was 13, manning the phones and processing fares for the drivers. Even as a child he could see it was not an easy job, but it was a trade that allowed Pakistani men, some of them very recent immigrants to the UK with few qualifications, to earn a living.
Over the years there have been many challenges, he says, with some drivers being violently attacked and others regularly subjected to racist abuse, but the pandemic has become a very unique type of foe. Now the head of the Dudley Private Hire and Taxi Association and the West Midlands Drivers Association, as well as running his own firm, Saleem says taxi drivers have become the forgotten victims.
