US Uber drivers plan 12-hour shutdown over pay and conditions
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
This article is about a recent supermarket employee strike but it also makes the argument that there's a larger labor movement that's sweeping across America that started last year. Importantly the general public is overwhelmingly supportive of the labor unrest. This Uber shutdown furthers that argument.
So expect to hear about more worker stoppages, protests, walkouts, and strikes in the near future.
>The [positive response from the public for striking supermarket employees] echoes the support for public school teachers who launched major strikes across the country in 2018 to protest low pay. It also suggests the labor unrest, which swept across the US last year, is nowhere close to dying down
>Within 24 hours, the stoppage became the largest private sector strike in at least three years, showing that last year’s spike in work stoppages across the country was not an isolated phenomenon.
>A record number of US workers went on strike or stopped working in 2018 because of labor disputes with employers, according to data released in February by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. A total of 485,000 employees were involved in major work stoppages last year — the highest number since 1986.
US corporations have record revenues/profits, US markets have never been at higher highs...yet the gap between executive pay and common employee has never been greater, social mobility has never been lower, wages have been stagnant for workers for 30 years.
Unfortunately strikes are to little to late...look toward google who fired organizers of the Google worker walkout, the powers that be have to much power, don’t give a shit about legal rights/laws, and know they could replace anyone with unpaid interns if needed because well that’s the state of desperation already.
Is this true, given how low unemployment is? (With respect to Google engineers being in a different situation from supermarket workers, teachers, uber drivers, etc.)
I would think workers have more power now than ever in recent memory given low unemployment and the current administration's aversion to immigration. Where are these replacement workers coming from? I disagree that unpaid interns is tenable solution.
This is by design. Meatpackers in America used to make the equivalent of $55/hour with benefits, putting the meatpacker, an otherwise unskilled worker who trained on the job, solidly in the middle class. Capitalists found this wage for unskilled labor to be too expensive and so they shamelessly used the rhetoric of both the Left (diversity!) and Right (free markets!) to their advantage, successfully lobbying to increase the supply of unskilled labor, increasing legal immigration limits and opposing measures that would limit illegal immigration.
To a lesser extent this has also happened with skilled labor via the H1-B visa program (among others) and attempts to raise the cap. Zuckerberg doesn't want a higher H1-B cap because he has a huge heart: he wants the increase to reduce his labor costs and thereby increase FB's operating margins.
I doubt this. And Uber's strike just pushes consumers to Lyft, so the consumer doesn't care that much of that case, the same way consumer doesnt care about paying public teachers more (their pay is disconnected from the consumer paying).
Most people are and always be reluctant to unions, because they represent a minority that is asking things from the majority.
If drivers are willing to accept Lyft's regular wages for a day, and refuse the temptation of surge pricing on Uber, price-sensitive consumers will see surge pricing on Uber and turn on the Lyft app.
If the goal is to threaten Uber's brand/customer-loyalty, this play might work?
Reductive.
Your model assumes demand for Lyft remains constant while supply increases. This ignores the fact that supply is dropping at Uber, which causes a price increase, which causes demand to shift else where...to Lyft which increases demand.
Additionally, many drivers who use both apps will simply stop driving, so Lyft is likely to see a surge as well.
That assertion needs some data to back it up. In fact I’d put my money on “most people” having both Uber/Lyft installed.
Fair counter. There will be some lock in. Given that both platforms have similar pricing means that there are strong arbitrage forces at play that keep them in check.
How will other Uber drivers know if you're driving around and not part of the protest? I suppose they could each book Uber's for pickup and then harass any driver that comes to them - however they'd have to use unrelated-unassociated phones numbers, as Uber likely would block or prevent Uber drivers from booking during days they know there are protests.
I'd certainly not buy Uber or Lyft; out of the two I would have bought Lyft at the IPO over Uber, however certainly not hold it very long-term.
"Self-driving 99.9% of the time" sounds very close to full self driving, but in order to have fully driverless Uber cars where you don't have to pay the driver, they'd have to not have a "safety" driver. That's the thing that's further away than people want to admit.
I’d consider occasional use of taxis with two more nines, but I’d really want three or four more nines.
Other than that, it's a self-selected (from how many videos in which things didn't go as smoothly?) video under ideal conditions, used for marketing. Very, very far from what would be necessary for Uber to stop relying on drivers.
I'm with the GP, 20 years sounds reasonable for general-case driverless cars. Or maybe longer.
Musk is critical of the usefulness of Lidar and therefore I am critical of the usefulness of Elon Musk to driverless cars. He has not embraced critical safety architecture.
It would also show how selfishness hurts you in the long term, and why unions are necessary to establish balance of power in negotiations.
Utterly absurd assumption, they know exactly the cost and better than anyone else.
Taxis still exist, surge pricing really will struggle above that. Most uber rides aren't of necessity, many studies have shown they replace public transport.
That's really the basis of my comment. It's not an assumption, it's quite black and white.
However, the cost to Uber is hard to predict - the strike is on the day of the IPO. If they can depress the share price at IPO by a few percent that potentially costs Uber far more than all the lost rides.
Edit: I suppose the entertaining thing about the gig economy is that it's possible to be "on strike" at employer A while working for employer B. Especially as there's no picket line here. (I think a few French anti-Uber strike/protests did have roadblock picket lines)
Customers, who also use all 12 apps simultaneously, will be unable to get an Uber in a timely manner, open a different app, and the same driver who would otherwise have picked them up for Uber will pick them up for one of the twelve different competitors.
The driver gets paid, Uber doesn't get a cut, and a little bit of brand loyalty is lost as the customer is a little less likely to open Uber first the next time.
Is this a rhetorical question? The drivers' demands are clearly listed in the article:
The drivers involved in the protests have four demands:
1. higher wages
2. clearer policies on wages, tips, how fares are shared and disciplinary action
3. employee benefits such as health care, disability payments and holiday pay
4. recognition and representation for drivers in Uber's management structure
1. Uber loses billions a year already, and they should lose more?
3. Health care? You kidding me? That's $300+ a month in the US, which would be a $15 billion/year expense for Uber.
Demands need to be structured in reality.
It might be worth considering that an opening bid that's too high in a negotiation sometimes just convinces the counterparty to walk away. If you ask for 150k and want 100k, there's a good chance the company might just say "Sorry, we can't afford that" - and then you have nothing.
Again, you're completely right. This is unquestionably a negotiation. At the same time, it would be foolish to assume that all opening bids are equally likely to be treated as reasonable.
- Some software person that likely works in a job with great health benefits and thinks they're somehow more entitled to them.
I'm not saying I'm convinced by the argument, and I'm not saying any of the above is correct. But it is the point being made, and low-effort snarky garbage like your comment just generates more heat than light and doesn't move anyone closer to understanding the situation.
Uber is the symptom of a broken system, pumping seemingly unlimited investors money based on false promises. The only winners in this game already left the boat (Kalanick for example).
This type of slave like jobs were predicted in the 60s already:
> If the social labor (time) engaged by the society is not to diminish because of automation (or any other less extreme form of increasing the productivity of labor), then new jobs have to be created. Services, the tertiary sector, swell the ranks of the army of distribution and are a eulogy to the current commodities; the additional forces which are mobilized just happen to be suitable for the organization of redundant labor required by the artificial needs for such commodities. - Guy Debord
[0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2945817/uber-will-buy-...
It's as if they're an unsustainable business being propped up by VC money that would implode on itself in an instant if that were to go away or something.
> 3. Health care? You kidding me? That's $300+ a month in the US, which would be a $15 billion/year expense for Uber.
oh no the horror won't somebody think of the unicorns
Spoken like someone unaware of how employment works for people that make less than 40k a year.
This is not about making the math work for Uber, it's about treating humans with the slightest bit of humanity.
If the math doesn't work, they shouldn't be in business.
Making it cost significantly more for Uber to get drivers will just make the price of an Uber go up, the demand go down, and people losing their job as an Uber driver.
My refusal of your $1/day offer may also disqualify me from welfare or other benefits. So just by making the offer you may put somebody into a lose-lose situation.
I agree with you that the only pragmatic solution is to follow the rest of the industrialized world and move to a single payer system, then we just stop having this debate and even talking about who is more deserving of worry-free healthcare. (Not talking about you, just the parent post).
Wasn't the entire point of Uber that they provided dynamic pricing based on the availability of drivers? If the wages are low, it's because there is an oversupply of drivers and a low demand for rides. Your option as a driver is to go do something else and drive at a time when the wages offered are more to your liking.
The whole "you're an independent contractor, don't work for poverty wages if you don't want to, it's a choice" argument is almost out of runway thankfully.
That said, employee classification at this point would probably help Uber over its competitors, because it could start setting hours for its drivers to make demand and prices more predictable. Regulatory capture benefits large companies over small ones. Uber has the operations team to make employee classification work at scale. At the edges of employee classification Uber could offer options to drivers such as a “bid” function if they wanted, with the primary result being increased friction (but perhaps increased happiness) for drivers.
What are the counterarguments?
> By that definition, virtually no Uber drivers would be considered independent contractors, unless the company can argue that transportation is not its main business. If more states adopt this standard, “that may be the only thing that can get around an ABC test,” attorney Todd Lebowitz told CNN in May. “If a ride-hailing service is a technology company, then they may still be able to meet that test. But it's going to be scrutinized a lot more closely now.”
https://theoutline.com/post/5469/uber-employees-abc-test-ins...
https://www.hrdefenseblog.com/2018/05/say-goodbye-to-indepen...
A New York appeals board also found Uber drivers to be employees for purposes of collecting unemployment insurance.
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=11019126706...
The parent was specifically challenging your claim that drivers don't control the where or the when, which that doesn't address.
I agree that there are good points in favor of the case that they're employees, but you're overstating it when you say drivers "don't control the where or when".
Describe in any reasonable fashion, how Uber would come up with even $5b more a year to pay for healthcare of 4 million people. Do it with concrete steps, and not just appeals to emotion or jokes.
[response to @duiker101]
That's the response you came up with when you finally had to say something real? I will gladly accept the brigade of downvotes from you and the rest of the cargo cult labor organizers who express zero interest in real dialogue.
If I told you my business lost me more money than it made, you'd probably call it a hobby.
At least, at one point in time you'd call it a hobby... now it's just a startup.
But I'm not getting downvoted because of semantics. There's a very vocal socialist/labor movement contingent on HN that flocks to discussions like this.
Being an Uber driver isn’t like other jobs where you have set hours to work, bad working conditions, manipulative managers, etc... No one is keeping you from getting another job and doing Uber on weekends, or doing Uber never. I can’t think of another job where you are more free to do what you want and make your situation better.
Seems pretty straight forward to me, but I know many people disagree. What exactly is Uber doing to exploit drivers?
Basically, Uber and other "gig economy jobs" can only exist because of the shit economic conditions of the last however many years. They are even worse than McJobs because you're not even employed. Terrible regulations and corporate lobbying has meant wages have been terrible for a lot of decades, and people need 2, 3 jobs to survive. And in this environment Uber has arrived, with a "It's better than nothing" job (although their ads promise a lot more than that, obviously).
But the business environment is the environment.
After writing the above paragraph, I realized it seems like the problem is that Uber promised their drivers good money, but the reality is much different, the money is not enough to make a living, which is probably why their drivers are pissed off and feel exploited. (If Job A (Uber) promised you say $1000/week and job B promises you $800/week, you'd take job A. But if it turns out job A only earns you $600 plus excuses, you'd be pissed off because you would've been better off taking job B in the first place).
And add to that the psychological tricks: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/02/technology/ub...
"58-year-old Richard Brunelle was struggling to cover the $1,000 monthly payment for his Kia Optima. The loan’s interest rate? An astonishing 22.75% APR."[0]
Though that particular program had other firms exploiting Richard via usury, Uber was front and center in that deal and set the rates at which Richard could make that money back. That bears repeating, Uber lead Richard down a path they knew was bad for him but was good for Uber. That is the literal definition of exploitation[1].
Normally, you'd give companies the benefit of the doubt with such things, wait for more data to come in, etc. But Uber has such a long history of outright illegal programs, shady practices, and callous abuse that it would be foolish to give them any benefit of the doubt now.
[0] https://www.marketplace.org/2015/05/13/tech/uber-drivers-str...
[1] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/exploitation
That's according to the gig economy and that's what the gig economy frantically tries to communicate as the gospel truth.
Legally, and depending on the jurisdiction, this may not be the case.
EDIT :That's the first time I comment on a downvote: But would whoever obviously doesn't like my opinion point out what's factually wrong with my statement?
Even though, an employer can't really do as she pleases. Some of the statutes are changeable, some are not. And some are only changeable to the advantage of the employee. For example: Minimum annual vacation is 4 weeks, which can be changed to 5 weeks, but not shortened to less than 4 weeks.
An American company (with a local subsidiary) arguing that you're not an employee, even though it controls all aspects of your work, and any dispute should be arbitrated in Dellaware would be laughed straight of court.
I’m surprised there aren’t more co-ops using this kind of tech. I understand why the Facebook clones don’t work because of the lack of economy of scale, but since ridesharing is really kind of local, it should occur more.
I suspect that the regulatory environment is tough for co-ops to fight because they don’t have the deep pockets to fight city hall when taxis complain.
This is also the case for Uber in various European countries.
Ride-share drivers already have a way to signal to the market that ride-share wages are too low -- choosing to do something other than drive. It is the absence of an alternative source of income that would make low ride-share wages painful.
Once ride-share drivers meet the minimum threshold for driver quality/safety, they are, perhaps unfortunately, a commodity in the eyes of the market, and commodity markets are brutal.
But the Uber app is literally a beacon that singles out Uber drivers. It's like being a regular scab but with a GPS tracker that picketers can use to track you down.
I wouldn't want to cross that picket line.