ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how a co-operative and a conventional taxicab company addressed workplace disputes. Although these businesses were similar in some ways, each responded with very different displays of legal consciousness. Employees of the privately owned, hierarchically organized taxicab company, Private Taxi, rarely brought formal grievances, but instead tolerated their problems, resigned, or tried to informally resolve them through peaceful discussion, aggressive confrontation, or petition to supervisors. Women and men at Co-op Cab attributed their anticipated grievance resolution strategies through formal and informal, respectively, partly to their company's identity as a worker co-operative. Women said that the formal empowerment derived from co-operative ideology and shared ownership enabled them to raise formal grievances. Employees at Private Taxi used only these three approaches: toleration, informal dispute resolution, and resignation. Although Private Taxi and Co-op Cab were similar in many ways, their workers demonstrated different characteristics of legal consciousness.
