Will that have a material impact on anyone's bottom line? Who knows, but I'd love to see the graphs for new account signups/account deletions.
[1] Taxis were not servicing JFK in support of those who were being detained there.
"NYTWA STATEMENT ON MUSLIM BAN:
Professional drivers are over 20 times more likely to be murdered on the job than other workers. By sanctioning bigotry with his unconstitutional and inhumane executive order banning Muslim refugees from seven countries, the president is putting professional drivers in more danger than they have been in any time since 9/11 when hate crimes against immigrants skyrocketed.
Our 19,000-member-strong union stands firmly opposed to Donald Trump's Muslim ban. As an organization whose membership is largely Muslim, a workforce that's almost universally immigrant, and a working-class movement that is rooted in the defense of the oppressed, we say no to this inhumane and unconstitutional ban.
We know all too well that when government programs sanction outright Islamophobia, and the rhetoric of hate is spewed from the bully pulpit, hate crimes increase and drivers suffer gravely. Our Sikh and other non-Muslim brown and black members also suffer from anti-Muslim violence.
Today, drivers are joining the protest at JFK Airport in support of all those who are currently being detained at the airport because of Trump's unconstitutional executive order. Drivers stand in solidarity with refugees coming to America in search of peace and safety and with those who are simply trying to return to their homes here in America after traveling abroad. We stand in solidarity with all of our peace-loving neighbors against this inhumane, cruel, and unconstitutional act of pure bigotry."
You find a list of countries banned on the visa waiver program made by the previous administration, and it covers many Muslim nations that are in the international spotlight right now. They're hot topics and it fits your criteria well. (Also they conveniently don't intersect with your business interests, so that's another plus.) You ignore Indonesia and India because they aren't in the news for terrorism, so it doesn't fit your narrative. Now you can get away with banning these "previously chosen" countries, by saying it's for national security, while you wink to your more explicitly racist supporters. You achieved their racist goal, de-facto, while having a non-racist "legitimate" excuse.
This is how institutional racism works. You have a racist goal in mind, and you implement it through actions that are under the guise of something more reasonable. It has the same effect as if you just made some overtly racist policy, but you can do it legally and with plausible deniability.
Also, if it helps, Rudy Giuliani said on national TV that Trump told him to do literally exactly this.
By your logic, the ban will not be temporary. Correct?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/rudy-giuliani-trump...
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/text-of-trump-executi...
Trump’s campaign in 2015 said it wanted “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.”
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...
[1] http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/muslims/pf_15-04-02_proje...
[0]https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/02/18/dhs-announces-further-tr...
The DHS list of countries on that waiver ban is indeed the same as those listed in the Executive Order. I haven't seen a reference that this list was indeed the basis for the countries listed in the Executive Order. If you know of one, please do share. I'm happy to be corrected.
Guiliani is widely reported in an interview on Fox News just yesterday to have confirmed that at least initially the goal was to create a Muslim ban:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316726-giuliani-t...
I’ll tell you the whole history of it: When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban,'" Giuliani said on Fox News.
"He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.’"
Giuliani said he then put together a commission that included lawmakers and expert lawyers. "And what we did was we focused on, instead of religion, danger," Giuliani said.
"The areas of the world that create danger for us, which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible."
Giuliani reiterated that the ban is "not based on religion."
Perhaps the claim that resulting Executive Order is indeed purely based on risk assessment is true. I think reasonable people can understandably question whether this is indeed the case. To deny that it at least initially was motivated by the desire to create a Muslim ban is disingenuous at best. Accusing people of relying on "fake news" if they bring this up is clearly unfair.
Obama has been bombing these countries killing innocent people and now people are upset that Trump doesn't let army age men to come from these countries while he is taking care of the terrorist Obamas action created? Where were the marches against Obamas warmongering policies?
The fact that people didn't protest more about Obama is a separate argument. The fact that Bush invaded Iraq is a separate argument. The fact that the US supported the mujahideen during the Soviet Afghan war is a separate argument. The fact that the US helped overthrow the Iranian government and install the Shah in 1953 is a separate argument. The fact that European powers divvied up the Middle East following World War I is a separate argument. Want to go back to the Crusades? Abraham?
Or you can tie them all together. They're all ultimately related. Which do you want? Where do you want to draw the line? What do you want to take responsibility for? Drawing in all manner of related topics doesn't help us move forward. I don't think any of that is useful.
What people are discussing now, today, is Trump's Executive Order, and what to do about it now.
It neither effects all Muslims nor (since it includes a temporary complete ban on all refugees) only Muslims, but it's still overtly targeted first and foremost at Muslims.
Edit: Maybe Uber mis-stepped by honoring requests for rides FROM the airport, but given the above I don't think they're doing this to grab money. It's actually a little sad to see the knee-jerk response by people lashing out at a company that is trying to help, in this instance.
Creating abusive policy targeted at people from certain countries seems xenophobic, isolationist, draconian, cruel, stupid.
Racism is a far more evil concept than any of those.
Abusing and rationalizing the abuse of people because you have made a generalization based on their geography, ideology or culture is certainly wrong.
Abusing and rationalizing the abuse of people because you believe they are genetically inferior is on a different level of depravity.
When we use "racism" as a catchall term for all bigotry and bias, we do it at the peril of diluting its power when that particular flavor of shitheaded thinking needs to be classified.
Or does it even matter? I don't see how you can try to create a ranking of "minor evil" or "far more evil."
Arguing against this being called "racism" is completely missing the point.
What Trump is doing is unamerican and unconstitutional. Arguably an impeachable offense.
And please, un-American? Our self-preservation is now un-American?
What kind of generalization is it though?
Breaking the strike is breaking the strike. They did not hold with refugees and immigrants, even after the taxi drivers explicitly asked them to do so. Everything else is just trying to mitigate damage to the point where people forget/engage in apologetics to obfuscate the choice they made.
Now that's being a hypocrite on a grand grand scale.
Please don't throw out generalizations like this, particularly as you're a member of the HN community yourself. If you feel strongly about this particular issue, write up a blog post making your case, and submit it to HN, or have someone submit it for you.
The point is you hold a strike to STOP work, not work for less money. That's called scabbing and is the opposite of solidarity.
This is about showing their support to the government, their allies.
If Uber was trying to help, they should have said so.
This was my original post for posterity:
"They did say so. This was their tweet:
'Our CEO's reaction to immigration order: "We'll compensate drivers impacted by the ban pro bono for next 3 months." http://ubr.to/standingup'"
Though I don't think the regular taxi companies or Lyft did that either.
>"NO PICKUPS @ JFK Airport 6 PM to 7 PM today," the union wrote in a subsequent tweet that was retweeted over 10,000 times. "Drivers stand in solidarity with thousands protesting inhumane & unconstitutional #MuslimBan."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-scene-at-jfk-as-taxi-d...
The objection is not that Uber didn't join the strike but that Uber reduced their prices to undermine the strike and get new customers.
No it's not. The union encouraging != the taxi companies somehow forcing it.
The union and the taxi companies are not the same thing.
> Uber reduced their prices to undermine the strike
Uber reducing prices to normal levels means fewer drivers anyway! Fewer rides! This makes no sense! Why would Uber even bother with some Machiavellian scheme to get a hundred or two extra rides? Makes no sense!
Getting that first install is critical, because once someone installs the Uber app they are unlikely to go back to taxi cabs. 200 extra riders might not be a big group, but they tell their friends and family and it spreads. This is especially true if the rides are discounted since everyone loves to talk about how much money they saved by taking an Uber instead of a taxi. Think of the ride sharing market in NYC, more than half the cars on the roads are taxis.
tl;dr Uber has employed viral marketing like this for years and it works.
I'm definitely coming around to the idea that Uber is simply playing both sides of this, and that it gives them too much credit to assume good intentions of them removing surge pricing.
That means less people could travel to airport for protests. Suspending surge pricing reduces availability of cabs. You understand that right ?
Both Lyft and Uber didn't suspend service to JFK last night because both are 24/7 platforms for anyone to drive and make money. Uber lowered/suspended surge pricing to make it affordable in/around the protests, while Lyft did not.
Worth noting is that active drivers on both platforms were likely protesting at airports all over the world.
Is that "giving them hate"? Should MLK have made fastidiously sure to go to cordoned off areas where no one would have been inconvenienced in the slightest?
In this case, the mechanism of political action is constricting the labor supply instead of giving cash to politicians.
It seems crazy for a company to force workers to join a protest, until you think about how they force workers to turn a profit and then donate to politicians that would happily oppress those same workers.
Companies also collectively fire people to bolster their profits, maybe we should demand they do some mass firings for a good cause. Trump supporters, maybe?
(On a related note, there are some regulations around mass layoffs: https://www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/warn.htm
American companies will run a series of layoffs JUST below the limit to avoid the reporting mandates! Kind of like structuring deposits of $9,999 to avoid the reporting requirement at $10k. Interesting.)
Then comes Uber, the vulture that swoops in all in the name of disrupting the market. They're allowed to do it, sure. Whether it's morally right is another thing.
Be better, please.
And it's remarkable if your claim is that without Trump's Muslim Ban there would still be protests at JFK this weekend. Are you really arguing that?
I don't know exactly how different protests would have played out if Trump took different actions in office, but it is overwhelmingly obvious that the protests are the result of emotion, not facts.
Also, you seem to be confused about the phrase "get over yourself" means. It targets self importance such as "be better please", it makes no sense whatsoever as a response to my comment.
Your dubious claim about the motivations of large groups of individuals is not at all "overwhelmingly obvious."
Get over yourself.
But it's worth noting the difference between that protest and the one at JFK, which I think it's pretty clear was a direct reaction to a specific policy created by President Trump. Using the Women's March as some sort of catch-all "haters gonna hate" dismissal of the valid concerns that many Americans have about the sitting president's actions is, to put it simply, a remarkable argument.
By undermining the strike, Uber is saying that their profits are more important than the injustice being protested. They are saying that they are perfectly happy to help society function while it is committing such a grave act of injustice against a vulnerable minority. It is organizations and people like Uber who are perfectly willing to make money and let life go on as authoritarians destroy the lives of their fellow citizens that allow evil to persist and thrive. It is people who get on with their lives while those of their neighbors are being disrupted and destroyed that most threaten freedom.
Inconveniencing those sort of people is exactly the purpose of protesting. It's supposed to make regular everyday people who aren't directly affected by Trump's actions feel their impact. If you disagree with the protesters that's one thing, but complaining about it affecting "normal people" is really missing the point.
Wouldn't that be a show of solidarity with the temporarily striking taxi drivers union?
I guess my question is, how does suspending surge pricing to JFK suggest Uber supports the executive order?
I don't think disabling surge pricing is a show of solidarity. With Taxis striking, surge pricing would have skyrocketed. This feels more like Uber just wants to preempt an inevitable news story about how surge pricing hit 10x or something during the taxi strike, which would be bad PR.
The article did say that Uber is working with its affected drivers to provide legal assistance. So, again, they're just protecting themselves. The company has practically no moral compass.
If Uber's drivers declined to participate in the strike, that's on the drivers, not Uber.
I heard about the SFO protests yesterday, and I largely support the cause, and I could have made it there in time to join. I didn't. Do you question my moral compass? Did I do something wrong? I know people who largely support the issues of the women's march, yet did not attend, or attended only part of the rally or march. Should they be vilified?
I think this is a scary idea. Not everyone can or has to actively join every protest to "prove" that they support the platform or "have a moral compass."
He miscalculated and discounted all the far-right baggage that comes with the Trump admin and therefore he has no one to blame for this misstep except himself.
If anything, disabling surge pricing lessens the impact of a taxi strike as going to/from the airport is more affordable and convenient then having zero or pricier options.
Yes, This may well be the most important reason they did that. That PR would have far more disastrous for Uber.
No-one outside their club needs to comply.
Will taxi companies join Uber and help financially support the taxi drivers who are stuck out of the country because of Trump's ban? Are they immoral if they don't follow Uber's lead?
Implying that this protest was started "just because they are unhappy" is disingenuous and refuses to engage with the issues in good faith.
The word entitlement is so charged and vague, what do you mean by it? No one is legally entitled to disrupt peoples' lives, but the reason why people choose to protest and disrupt society until their demands are met is because they believe that society does not deserve to go on undisrupted while it allows some injustice to continue.
Let's be real. If no one protested this ban on muslims, very few peoples' lives would be disrupted. It would be a slight hiccup to just discard these people from society and replace whatever function they played. We are all disposable. That is why people protest, because otherwise injustice would go unpunished.
The abstract reasoning is this: If society is structured in such a way that an injustice can occur and persist with no disruption to society, then people are morally obligated to disrupt society when that injustice occurs in order to remedy it and prevent it in the future.
The justification is empirical: Evidence demonstrates that when most people can go about their day without hindrance while atrocities are being committed, they will gladly get used to and accept those atrocities as a fact of life.
With respect to the word entitlement: I mean ethically. When someone is angry (like the people in this thread promising to delete Uber) that something didn't happen, then it seems like they felt entitled to have it happen.
It lasted one hour. Get over it. Social change doesn't happen without inconvenience.
On the other hand, I've yet to talk to an Uber driver that doesn't also accept fares via Lyft, and if we can convince drivers to abandon Uber by shifting our consumer dollars to Lyft, then the Uber brand and platform will lose value.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/21/uber-losses-expected-to-hi...