Uber Drivers Protest Outside the Company’s San Francisco Headquarters
allthingsd.com
allthingsd.com
There are times where I really like the people at McDonalds than those I work for, the pretentiousness at times is discouraging.
I may not be a blue collar worker but that doesn't mean I expect to be owed any sort of deal from anyone. If I feel like I'm getting a raw deal I'm going to leave that situation and find a better deal elsewhere. It's that simple.
You're either with the startups or you're against them. Supporting workers in this case means you're against the startups, and that's "wrong." Of course HN members don't write that, but people are here in large part to support their passion for startups - don't challenge that or you're gonna have a bad time. Every would-be founder here is thinking they'd can 50,000 taxi drivers in a heartbeat if it meant a shot at the big time.
They're negotiating for a better deal. They just happen to be using different tactics than you would.
Given Uber's recent history with authority, I wouldn't be surprised if some shady organization employed all these unhappy people to go and protest. Most like, actually.
I personally think tactics like these are counterproductive and that it'd be better to handle it internally.
I definitely don't see how it was counter productive though, if they were standing out there to bring more attention to the situation.
With the drivers acting as a group, the other party would now have to replace most of them (excluding defectors), not one of them, which is more difficult, giving the group a better negotiating position. No entitlement, just free markets and game theory.
That's funny, because in countries where there's no prevalent disdain for trade unions, this tactic actually works and gets workers good deals. This is only absurd for employers, who'd like to get more work done and pay less.
Also, your use of the word "authority" is wrong. Judging by Uber's recent bouts with elected representatives of the people and democratic institutions, and their relative success, I'm not sure where "authority" lies: with "corrupt institutions" or with "stinking money". To continue your conspiratorial line of thought, I'd say that I wouldn't be surprised if Uber's successes are a result of bribery (In fact, there is more reason to believe the latter, as you and I were both present when a certain man of influence bragged to a large crowd about something along the same lines.)
That's all from the free-market perspective. From a social responsibility perspective, I don't understand why a company feels entitled to fire working people when they like, without a proper hearing.
If you don't like it, move to some country where the state actively oppresses workers and suppresses the price of labor for the Greater Glory of Capital. Oh wait, you already live in the United States, don't you?
They seem to be hacking the law/industry in order to provide a service some way between taxis and limos at a cost that is just above taxis. But then they expect the drivers to work at taxi wages. If they think students can deliver the same service at taxi driver prices, good luck to them
A lot of people are not so lucky. Let's not pretend that they have the same advantages and opportunities as we do. When they organize to try to raise awareness that they feel they are being treated unreasonably, let's not pretend like they are somehow evil.
We are a bunch of humans living together on this tiny blue dot. We are entitled to be treated with the respect that any human deserves. Please, try to have a little bit of perspective outside your own experience. There is a whole world of people whose circumstances are far different from anything you can imagine.
The flipside of entitlement is exploitation - Uber are exploiting the low-pay and restricted bargaining power of blue collar workers to their own ends. I think that is far more reprehensible.
As intelligent, fast-learning people in a market that allows for a greater deal of freedom than theirs, it is wrong to judge them. They are in a shittier situation than us, and are trying to change that. Surely we should be admiring them for taking the initiative and doing this?
Not only are such responses markedly devoid of empathy, they are also bizarrely illogical. Employees and "partners" both have the right to organize and attempt to effect change.
Lastly, all this free market cheerleading also sounds fairly hollow coming from a currently privileged class. I can't help but think attitudes would be different in more trying times.
The "rampant firing" happens when drivers who suck get poor ratings (below 4.7 and you go on probation according to an Uber driver I talked to) sounds like their own problem not Uber's.
The fact that the drivers want to negotiate means they clearly like something about working with Uber.
Drivers also can't dispute their ratings so it takes one person to give them a one star which could lead to being fired. And can you truly say all customers are fair in their ratings?
The best thing that could happen for these drivers is having another company open up to compete against uber. Then they wouldn't be a commodity.
If they were not "taxi drivers" than everyone would be furious at how they are treated.
I am not debating that Uber is a huge help for getting business. I just feel that their employee conditions are not what many others expect in their daily jobs. I don't feel that is wrong.
The "if you don't like it, tough!" angle sounds nice, but is untenable in cities where Uber has absorbed the lion's share of the towncar market.
Just because Uber is "one of us" doesn't mean they're scrupulous. I'd be very wary of trading disparate, crappy towncar companies for a single monolithic one with startupy roots.
This brings up a related point. For a typical Uber ride, do you give the driver 3-stars or 5-stars?
I usually give 5-stars when a ride goes smoothly. But I know people who default to 3-stars (average) unless the driver goes out of his way & is exceptional.
I've considered switching my default to 4-stars for a nice ride, leaving me a 1-star buffer for exceptional service. But using that scale, I wouldn't want a 4.7 driver to get dinged.
One of my earlier Uber rides I decided to go ahead and rate 3 stars because I felt it was a fairly average ride. Pretty quickly I got contacted by someone at Uber who wanted to ask me what was wrong with my ride. When I explained that I felt it was merely average, they told me a simplistic version of what jamiequint said, that they only want to work with the best drivers and therefore 3 isn't an average rating, it's actually a bad rating.
red -- poor -- 0%
yellow -- ok -- 5%
green -- fine -- 10%
blue -- great -- 15%
gold -- superb -- 20%
Attach a tip % to each (perhaps)
Only one driver though, provided me with water bottles and candy. That was a superb experience. Maybe the only superb one while the rest were fine.
Requiring a short explanation will def put the average rating to 4.
I'm not a uber user (have no need for it). Could you detail what factors to you makes a ride "average" or "good" or "great" etc?
Personally, I think the "thumbs-up/thumbs-down" system does a better job.
(To make it even worse, the management accidentally let the sales meet their target once; some people actually got their bonuses, so upstairs bumped the minimum target score again.)
You'd think they would be normalizing that data against that users average ratings, rather than as a raw score.
For eg. is this rating plus or minus this users average rating.
As far as I knew, not being able to complain about conditions was something for China and Africa, not for advanced egalitarian societies...
That seems unfair that the driver gets on probation for those 2 instances.
I'd like to use this driver again
I'd like not to use this driver again
I don't feel either way
I don't know jackshit about California law on that, but it seems reasonable that this means that the company is:
1. paying less taxes than it should and shifting the cost onto its employees.
2. denying their workers benefits they would be entitled to as employees (401k, healthcare…).
3. denying their workers rights they would be entitled to as employees (maternity leave…).
4. being far too elastic when demand is low. With employees they'd have constant costs even with no customers.
Those are all reasons why we have labor laws, and why at-will employment can work only for the most sought after professions, and not for blue collars.
On the other hand if a freelancer has only have one source of contracts/income and said freelancer doesn't make significantly more an hour than an employee would, then the employee is getting the short end of the stick.
I'm willing to argue that this kind of outsourcing jobs you should employ people for, should be discouraged by law, either by making it more costly for the employer or by actively forcing employers to hire these not-so-free-lancers.
This brings us to the very important question of what a business is for. There are several views on the subject, but I like this one: a company is a social organization constructed for the purpose of providing income to its members, namely its owners and employees. Now, I'm not saying everyone should get the same -- some have assumed a greater risk than others, and the laws of supply and demand are at play when it comes to skills, too -- but the pay should be fair because that is the company's raison d'etre. "The customer comes first" only inasmuch it helps achieving this goal; if you don't treat your customers right, you will lose their business to competitors and will be unable to provide for your employees. But really, it's the employees who come first.
The place of work is a very important social organization, because you spend most of your day as its member. This organization not only provides you with livelihood, but with a sense of respect; for many, what they do and where they work is an important part of who they are.
And that is why when I hear of a business mistreating its customers, I think "that's a really bad business", but when I hear of a business mistreating its employees -- I get angry; that's breaking a social contract, and one with people who are weaker than you and that you have responsibility for. That's why you may dislike that couple down the block who are rude to everyone, but if you heard that your next door neighbors, who are always nice and offer to water your plants when you're gone, are pimping their daughters, you'll get really mad.
Automatically firing your employees based on a few bad reviews (if that's what Uber is in fact doing, according to the information presented), is akin (continuing the family analogy that I'm growing tired of) to kicking your child out of the house for getting bad grades at school. Sure, the kid has a responsibility to learn, but you have a stronger responsibility towards your kid.
It appears that Uber thinks that by not calling their employees "employees" they are somehow absolved from this social contract. They're not. Now, I'm not saying that Uber are definitely in the wrong here because we have not yet heard their side. Maybe those drivers are lazy money-grubbers seeking to exploit their good-hearted, yet gullible, employers. But the allegations sound very serious.
Just so you know where I am coming from: I work in a very similar industry (freight transport), and this model is very common with truck carriers, brokers, independent owner-operators, etc.
I've worked as a contractor at two previous tech companies where I was once an employee, and one of them eventually ended up offering half my rate because I did such a poor job on a particular project (I had lots of personal issues to contend with and was trying to start a business). If I had thought it was unfair, and a systematic way to lower costs, I might have made a stink with other contractors, but I knew it was my own, so I just quit dealing with them.
Just to reiterate my main point: Contractors are not employees, and the relationship is well defined, and not just to skirt some obligation. It is usually done to align priorities, and assure responsibility and maximum pay for the contractor.
Contracting is a useful economic and social agreement intended to define a more limited mutual responsibility than full employment, just as dating is not the same as marriage. No one would date if it were expected of them to treat their newly acquainted dates with the same responsibilities spouses are supposed to treat each other. On the other hand, what matters (socially and ethically, if not legally) isn't what the relationship or contract is called, but how it's expressed de facto. For example, I'm not too familiar with US laws, but in my country (Israel), courts grant domestic partners the same rights as married couples (when it comes to splitting property, or even when it comes to spouse health insurance), and contractors (or freelancers) are granted the same rights as employees (e.g. severance pay, insurance) if it is shown that they were contractors in name only (for example, if the contractors worked solely or mostly for one employer, or if they were not at liberty to turn down work without expecting immediate termination).
Since Uber's drivers are the very core of its business -- in fact, they are the most crucial "department" in the company -- it seems to me they are actually full employees, and must be treated as such. This is especially true if the drivers work in regular shifts, and are obligated to actually show up to work (I don't know if this is in fact the case; if not, Uber would naturally be less responsible for them).
If you are interested, here's the transcript:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1252781-landstar-system-s-ce...
N.B. You will have to hand edit HTML in order to avoid having to login.
You seem to be implying that by firing under-performers Uber is somehow mistreating its workers. I would argue that's simply false. In environments with literally hundreds of people waiting at the door to take your job the environment is going to be more competitive, and it should be. This is not a blue-collar only thing, sales works the same way in many organizations. It does not mean fired salespeople are being mistreated, its just the way business works.
I really don't agree with your conception of a business as a entity that has social responsibility to its employees. Businesses exist to return value to shareholders, not to employees (although they may occasionally be shareholders also). If treating employees extremely well is good for business (e.g. Google) then businesses will do it. This usually exists in an environment where there is a surplus of demand for the employees you want. If there is a surplus of supply, employees don't tend to be treated like that (e.g. Cable Assembly Factory - a place I once worked for 2 years). Its unreasonable to expect a business to be generous to its employees at the expense of its shareholders, it just doesn't make for a very efficient business or a very efficient marketplace.
True.
> ... , and it should be.
No. A current employee is not a replaceable part of machinery, and should not be treated the same as a prospective employee. The difference is that an employer has responsibilities to their current employees, and little responsibility to prospective employees. Now I'm starting to think that all my analogies to families were not so ill conceived. Hiring someone is not unlike marriage. The fact that there are plenty of fish in the sea, does not mean that your wife should live in a competitive environment. Once you marry her you take it upon yourself to forsake all others -- even if they are better -- unless you wish to divorce, which can be messy, as it should be.
> Businesses exist to return value to shareholders, not to employees.
I don't think so. I know this is how businesses are often described (especially in America), but this is not some universal truth. In Germany, so I've read, employees get up to half of the board seats, with shareholders having a one seat advantage ([1] and [2]).
EDIT:
[Here's a direct quote from [3]: "On the assumption that the primary goal of employers is to maximise profits in the interests of shareholders, codetermination can reorient the company's goals in the interests of workers. A better balance may be struck so that the company interests are not so one sided. For unions, codetermination is part of democratising the economy. It is also a way for workers to better the terms and conditions of their contracts in an orderly and regulated way."
In short, "businesses exist to return value to shareholders, not to employees" is far from being an axiom of society. It is certainly not the necessary order of things or a divine decree.]
> Its unreasonable to expect a business to be generous to its employees at the expense of its shareholders...
I think it is not only most reasonable, but the right thing to do. In fact, shareholders should expect this as custodians of a very important social structure - the workplace. Going back to the family analogy (which seems more apt by the minute), while it is the parents who decide to start a family for their own selfish goals (maybe it's their biological calling, and maybe they think it will give them purpose in life), it is most reasonable, and even expected, that they should be generous to their children at their own expense.
I think both parties, shareholders and employees, should get whatever is fair from their arrangement. What is considered fair should be decided by accepted values and by negotiations, where each party exerts whatever power it has to achieve a stronger position.
It is true, however, that if you stop viewing the workplace as a social contract, it stops looking like a family, and people start looking like replaceable machine parts.
> ... it just doesn't make for a very efficient business or a very efficient marketplace.
I think Germany is doing fine.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination
[2] http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relat...
That being said, we need to distinguish business from charity. While a business may have certain obligations to the productive members of its work-force, I don't see any obligations towards the unproductive ones, and that is where the argument crosses the line into charity.
As an employer, I don't give you a paycheck because you're my family member and I want to support you. I do it because we are in a mutually-beneficial relationship. And it couldn't work any other way -- if you stopped firing the bad apples, your business would literally crumble.
No one is arguing that you do, but there's a long, long way from assuming responsibilities towards your employees to charity. It's not a line that's easily crossed.
> I do it because we are in a mutually-beneficial relationship.
Absolutely, but this argument is the one most abused by exploiters. The fact that the worker receives some benefit from the relationship does not mean that the arrangement is fair. Ironically, it is Americans (as well as people in other industrialized nations) who insist on a fair distribution in the ultimatum game[1], while many of them have very strong beliefs about how much exactly workers "deserve".
[1] http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/...
I actually agree with this. In this case the drivers have no power since many other drivers are willing to step in to take their place. Uber has all the power, so they are going to do nothing about what this small group of driver's demands. Life goes on.
> "No. A current employee is not a replaceable part of machinery, and should not be treated the same as a prospective employee."
Unfortunately in this economy drivers are pretty close to commodity labor. If you don't want to be treated like commodity labor its best to not be commodity labor.
Sure. But I wish exploited workers (I'm not sure this is the case here, but for the sake of argument) could use their meager power to beat the living shit out of the CEO. Maybe even give him a good wedgie. I think that a society that turns a blind eye to exploitation, should also turn a blind eye to the odd board member getting a good shellacking now and then from some able-bodied employees. Life would go on just the same.
> Unfortunately in this economy drivers are pretty close to commodity labor.
So are women. There sure are plenty of them around.
> If you don't want to be treated like commodity labor its best to not be commodity labor.
Yes, if you can. If not, your next best course of action is to work for actual human beings rather than douchebags. Actually, I think this is sound advice for everyone.
Conflation FTW.
> If not, your next best course of action is to work for actual human beings rather than douchebags.
So, you are implying that businesses should not fire under-performers if they are not able to get another job because that makes their management "douchebags"? That's patently ridiculous.
Not at all. All I'm saying is, once you've hired people, you have a responsibility towards them. You are quite literally in a relationship with them, a relationship that cannot be taken lightly. At the very least, termination should be a very painful process for both parties.
And yes, management that treats people as a commodity is a bunch of douchebags that, in a more just and virtuous society, would have some or most of their teeth knocked out.
Well then I'm happy that in this society there is jail for people with your proclivities.
Nevertheless, I'm sure you're only saying that because you believe you are unlikely to find yourself on the side of the exploited. I, myself, do not know what fate holds for me, and have seen too much to put all of my chips on red, so I'd rather promote a society that protects its members from both sorts of violence, physical and economic, or -- to make things more interesting yet still fair -- from neither.
The bulk of this discussion (and many others) really just boil down to this.
Sometimes I wonder if the seeming distribution of sociopaths on HN is representative of the general population, or if we have more of them than other communities.
I will not try to argue against objectivism or against what some Americans think that libertarianism means. But I will say that what bothers me most about Rand's followers and many who call themselves libertarians, is how they favor some kinds of power over another. In particular, they believe that the use of money or private property -- no matter how harmful -- is OK, or, at least, reasonable and should be allowed free reign, while unionizing, violence and other kinds of power that are usually the only kinds within the reach of the poor, are wrong and should be constrained.
Some even would try to decide what the workers "deserve", while they'll perfectly agree that Mark Zuckerberg deserves whatever he is able to get.
It's not even rationalization most of the time (e.g., "this sucks but it's for the best"), as we see in this post it's outright hostility (i.e., "entitlement", "oh well", "commodity workers", etc).
Technology, and startup money, give people an awful lot of influence and power - I'm bothered by the fact that a large portion of our community strut about with a lack of empathy and respect for the inhabitants of this world. I see many members of this community as miniature would-be robber barons.
It's something I've been thinking about - I don't generally see this trait in people I know from other fields like science or math, not at this incidence rate anyways. Either there are many more empathy-less people (to avoid the s-word) in other fields than I can see, or there is indeed a higher concentration of them in our field. Neither option sits very well.
In fact all of these rating and ranking systems (as well as public commenting) cause businesses to have to expend excess time and energy to keep a small vocal percentage of customers happy for fear of backlash instead of concentrating on simply making a good or acceptable product that satisfies 95% of customers. I'm reminded of this sometimes when I read tripadvisor reviews where people go off because there is a bug in their room or the desk staff was having a bad day the particular day they arrived.
I count 25 (or 24 if the guy at right-rear has big hair) people in the picture and I suspect that if there were more than that, they'd have made sure to squeeze them into the shot.
A small group (proportionally) if you look at the number of drivers Uber has. And do they really represent drivers from the other cities served by Uber or is that wishful thinking.
"They don’t have the balls to come down and talk to us" ... maybe because they're busy dispatching thousand of drivers to waiting customers? If Uber is really that hard on the drivers, why don't they work elsewhere? They have no contract, so they're free to go.
To me this is clearly what this is about. Uber is already being disrupted, so they are desperate to lower their costs to be able to compete again. As a guy who literally gave up vehicle ownership just because of these services, all I can say is god bless startup darwinism.
I think that some driver backlash is a normal part of growing, and that Uber should maintain strict quality control.
Eg "Hop into the sleek black car", "Our classic black car option is the default". WTF?
Maybe it's a US thing - I'm from the UK and I have no idea why you would need a car of a particular colour.
I know I personally wouldn't ever say anything negative about my employer, even though I personally haven't any cause to.
The guys that own their own cars are not Uber employees - they can sign up to be dispatched by traditional radios instead (or as well). So, from my sample in NYC, Uber is way better than existing models for the drivers.
Your driver doesn't know you're deeply interested in tech startups like his employer. Almost all taxi conversations are brief, casual, on the surface. If your next taxi driver took an innocent small-talk question as a chance to air his gripes about his new, better employer, how would you feel at the end of the ride? How are you going to rate that driver? 1 star? Oh shit, now he's canned.
You're getting the only safe answer to your question. For all you know, the drivers are terrified to speak out.
Guys riding around in air-conditioned cars all day calling their working conditions a sweatshop.
What if Uber can't actually pay them what they want? Is the solution to force Uber to not fire any drivers, to pay them more than they're able? And by what insane reasoning should they be forced to pay more? Uber isn't owned by the government, and isn't the sole dispatcher around (and certainly not in SF!).
If Uber's business model can't support paying the drivers more than there's nothing that can be done except for the drivers that don't like the conditions to quit. If that means that Uber then goes out of business, so be it. No amount of protesting is going to fix that.
I feel for these men, but I think their best choice is to find other employment - this protest will lead nowhere.
I am sure out of the many fired some are legit firings - drivers not respectful or just not good enough. And similarly some who have been short changed by customers giving bad reviews.
So here is my dilemma, wearing the customer hat - if this move by Uber guarantees me that every time I hail a Uber cab, I am guaranteed to get a 4.7 star experience in the minimum (ya sometimes not, but on an average yes). So why wouldn't I want that as a customer?
Now if I wear the hat of a sympathetic human, I can probably see some injustice if I sift through all the firings. So how can we hold Uber accountable?
Being a realist, sometimes one has to understand that many systems don't have equality and maybe in this case the injustice/inequality benefits the Uber customers.
So yeah, does not compute, unless things have drastically changed recently.
Wait until it's in SF. This company is going to change the world, even before the driving part is automated.
But I understand I'm not paying for a commodity, which is why this concerns me. My relationship with Uber is through its drivers, not their app--I'm just worried they don't understand that.
I would agree with the previous poster, drivers are mostly commodity producers. Just like barbers, you might find one exceptional here and then, but generally it's all commodity.
It's what led to lots of development jobs being outsourced to India and similar. Thankfully though it seems that trend is reversing because businesses are finding out what they gain in cost savings is quickly eaten up by lack of quality.
Your definition would also include entrepreneurs. There might be a good one here and there, but I could just walk into any coffee shop and pick up another one.