The study aims to establish the motive and process of student activists into the taxi workers’ movement from Seoul and Incheon in the 1980s and early 1990s. A demonstration by taxi workers took place during the 1980 Gwangju uprising, shocking the intellectual movement for the first time. Since then, when Daegu taxi protests broke out on May 25, 1984, Mincheongryeon and others issued a supporting statement. When Park Jong-man, a taxi worker burned himself to death on November 30, 1984, the student activists and the workers began to unite. Bae Kiu-Sik, who made the fact report in the Daegu taxi protests, met Park Jong-man's wife Cho In-sik. They established the Park Jong-man Memorial Association in early 1986, and this became the center of the taxi workers' union movement. Whereas activists in Seoul were heavily influenced by individual motives, their counterparts in Incheon had a more organizational nature. In 1987, Song Young-kil, a member of Incheon democratic labor union(Inminnoryeon) started operating a counseling office for drivers at the Incheon Christian Public Education Research Center. Incheon also issued traffic reports, as it did in Seoul, and due to the funeral struggle of martyr Kim Jang-soo, the relationship between the academic activists and field workers has become very close. After the Federation of Motor Workers' Union separated the National Taxi Workers 'Union in 1988, student activists in both Seoul and Incheon combined to vote for branch leaders to control their local chapters. Since then, taxi drivers' union has went on a general strike since 1987. Seoul and Incheon were different in their activities. Incheon was more emotional and direct than Seoul because of the difference in size of the regions and participation motive of the activists: personal motive or organizational determination.