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This isn't right. I know "drivers can choose," and nobody is forcing these people to live and work like this. It still feels wrong. One driver mentioned in the

This isn't right. I know "drivers can choose," and nobody is forcing these people to live and work like this. It still feels wrong. One driver mentioned in the article leased his car from Uber and sleeps in it because it's the only way he can make enough to afford the payments. Seems like indentured servitude to me. Uber owes its drivers more.

xapata 10y ago
Why is it not right for drivers, but perfectly fine for migrant farm workers? Perhaps society owes these people more, but not Uber.
- ams6110 10y ago
  I didn't see that claim in GP post.
  - xapata 10y ago
    True, I only inferred it from the statement that Uber owes them more. It's possible that maxfurman believes all low-wage employers owe more.
- loafa 10y ago
  Since so-called "migrant farm workers" tend to be there illegally, what society owes them is a hearty punishment followed by a deportation. Or if you're talking about the legal migrant farm workers, then what society owes them is the deportation of the illegals, so that they no longer have to compete on price with an unlimited number of people who shouldn't be there. It's no surprise that unenforced immigration laws plus an open border to a third-world country drives down unskilled labour prices. Heck, once we get rid of the illegals we may find that Uber prices go up too. The US doesn't really have an oversupply of unskilled labour.
  - burkaman 10y ago
    What do you mean by "hearty punishment"?
    - loafa 10y ago
      I don't really want to derail the conversation into the virtues of corporal punishment, but I'm a big fan of that as a cost-effective method that everyone can fear equally. (Prison is, perversely, more pleasant for the sort of person that usually goes to prison than for the sort of person who doesn't.) It can't just be "deportation", though. The penalty for stealing a car isn't just that you have to give the car back. The punishment for being found in the country illegally has to be severe enough that people are actually discouraged from making the attempt (or to deport themselves if they're there at the moment). In Australia, our illegal immigrants tend to wind up spending a long time in an immigration detention centre while awaiting trial, which is strictly speaking an administrative need but winds up working as a pretty good punishment. I'm not sure if this scales up to the American system though as you have a lot more people you're gonna need to process.
      - woofyman 10y ago
        If you really wanted to stop undocumented workers, punish the employers. One Trump cabinet pick recently fired a house hold employee because of their status. That sort of thing use to be disqualifying. Not any more.
        loafa 10y ago
        That's a good start, we need to work both ends of the problem. Mind you, since the government doesn't have any reliable means of determining whether somebody is in the country legally or not I'm not sure how we can hold employers responsible either. The only way we could hold employers responsible is if there's a reliable system which allows people to check on others' immigration status at any time. And is that what we want?
      - lanaius 10y ago
        The US has plenty of existing immigration detention centers: https://www.ice.gov/detention-facilities https://www.ice.gov/detention-facilities.
1_2__3 10y ago
> Uber owes its drivers more. Why? Not trying to be snarky; why do they owe their drivers anything but incentive to work for them (which seems sufficient, or we wouldn't even be having this conversation int he first place). Expecting companies to be morally upstanding is silly and a modern invention by the right. The right way to solve this is now by complaining about what Uber "owes" its drivers but in legislation. But we don't want to legislate businesses, we want to stay "nimble" and "flexible", so this is what we get as a result. Don't complain about lying in the bed we've made.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- burkaman 10y ago
  Well, some states and cities and drivers have also made legal arguments that Uber owes its drivers more, but they don't seem to be winning (yet?).
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  Not trying to be snarky; why do they owe their drivers anything but incentive to work for them? Because karma is bitch, and history bites back. And if Uber doesn't step up to the plate, and start doing what's not only right for its drivers, but (by any common-sense analysis) also right for its own balance sheets in the long term (as opposed to what appears to be right in the short-term for its megalomaniacal expansion plans)-- that is, make driving a sustainable profession to be in, and not just a "well as long as times aren't so great, let's see how long we can get away with screwing these people" (as appears to be their current motto) profession -- then soon enough, it's going to bite back on them -- hard.
  - diminoten 10y ago
    What does "times aren't so great" mean?
    - kafkaesq 10y ago
      The state of the economy (and life in general) for people who aren't tech workers, these days.
djrogers 10y ago
> One driver mentioned in the article leased his car from Uber and sleeps in it because it's the only way he can make enough to afford the payments. You obviously didn't read the whole article (although the author clearly tried to bury this at the end) - quote from the same driver: “I signed up for this because I am my boss. I kind of own the business. I have the freedom and that’s a beautiful thing,” and “These labor advocates, they don’t know what it’s like to be a driver. They think we’re not being treated right, but I’m happy. If I didn’t like it, I would do something else.”
- tway13465234 10y ago
  This jibes with my experience. Throwaway because reasons and personal. I was doing work for <large, billion dollar tech company everyone knows> as an hourly contractor. I left to do some "sharing economy" stuff that, although is not the same as doing rideshares for Uber, it's something that's very, very similar. It involves driving. The changes that it brought were: - Not having to do work that, at the end of the day, is the opposite of fulfilling - Not having to answer for dumb, avoidable mistakes when the responsibility inevitably diffuses throughout the whole team - Not having to deal with the workplace sociopaths who cause them - Not being subjected to the whims of a mercurial, micromanaging supervisor - Not having the stress of all these things creep into my life outside work The downside to leaving and opting for what I'm doing now is basically this: big pay cut. I'm not a SV rockstar and have no nest egg, but this is paying for groceries and rent for the time being. I can say unequivocally that in regards to all these factors that people pretend to care about, I'm far more well off than I would have been at my former workplace, and yet if I had stayed, no one would have batted an eye and feigned to sympathize with the plight that resulted from those circumstances, because it was a "real" job. I honestly could not give a relatable damn about the "I have my own schedule" aspects. I'm very big on planning, and the truth is that I'm able to make plans that stick even better than when I was at <the company>. By far the most important part is that when I'm not driving, I'm able to do things in my offtime that keep me sharp. Before leaving, the idea that I could, say, build up my skills in my time off until something better comes along, was totally out of the question. I'd compare trying to stave off the braindamage of dealing with daily workplace nonsense to be similar to trying to maintain a healthy physique so that you're fit enough to enjoy your daily jog, all while your paycheck somehow relies on subjecting your body to junk food, soda, and cigarettes. Now, I've got side projects and interesting avenues of research to explore.
jimmytucson 10y ago
Have you ever read about the commercial freight industry? Ever heard of truck stops?
- r00fus 10y ago
  Human freight is a bit different, neh? The idea that my driver is overnighting in his/her car is not appealing to me as a rider. Does Uber not care about their image? Next time I Uber/Lyft (rare, usually just airport shuttle) I'm going to ask about that.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
strken 10y ago
The "drivers can choose" argument is important because it shows that for at least one driver it is genuinely preferable to sleep in his car and work 70 hours a week than do anything else. Clearly, drivers are facing unemployment, poverty, or working conditions that are even worse. It would be very easy to regulate the hell out of Uber and turn the unicorn into a donkey. However, that wouldn't improve the conditions that those in the economic class of drivers are subject to, it would just make them less visible. Fixing the Uber problem without providing any alternative employment options is a superficial placebo to make the wealthy feel more comfortable, because it doesn't correct any of the underlying economic problems. Those drivers will still exist, they'll just be pushed into agriculture, sweatshops, and dingy housing projects; hidden places, where nobody else has to look at them again. There's a very good article called The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics[0] which states that "when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it", and "if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster." This seems to be the case with Uber, where they make money from a social and economic problem where there's an oversupply of unskilled labour, and thus get blamed for the working conditions that were already a reality for so many hidden and unnoticed people, even if they incrementally improve those conditions. This is not a call to give Uber free rein, but rather to consider drivers as more or less rational human beings capable of making their own choices, and to consider driver wellbeing in that light. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20160806191858/https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ http://web.archive.org/web/20160806191858/https://blog.jaibo...
- hackuser 10y ago
  > It would be very easy to regulate the hell out of Uber and turn the unicorn into a donkey. However, that wouldn't improve the conditions that those in the economic class of drivers are subject to It's a bit of a strawman to use the hyperbole; plenty of industries are regulated, not regulated "the hell out of", and very profitable too. Also, I disagree with the second statement; labor regulations have a long history of helping workers and still do. They enjoy a 40 hour workweek, overtime, safe working conditions, protection for collective bargaining and much more. It's the places where these things are absent, such as Uber and their non-employees, where people suffer more. Of course, anything can be taken too far, but unless workers have real power and leverage, they will be taken advantage of. It may sound like economics, but it's not coincidence that everything the right wing promote strengthens business and/or weakens labor. The economic rationalizations are post-hoc talking points.
rhaps0dy 10y ago
I'll quote the end of the article: “This job is not for everyone. Don’t get it twisted,” he said. “These labor advocates, they don’t know what it’s like to be a driver. They think we’re not being treated right, but I’m happy. If I didn’t like it, I would do something else.”
- yabatopia 10y ago
  A modern day example of Stockholm Syndrome?
  - yarou 10y ago
    Nope, you totally missed the pure wisdom in the driver's quote. His point is that academics in ivory towers who make policy decisions are so far removed from his reality, that they are ill-equipped to make appropriate policy decisions on his behalf. He's asking labor advocates to engage with him, rather than hand down a potentially disastrous policy decision. Government drones could really learn a thing or two from that guy.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
If someone's choosing that then it means the alternative is even worse. I don't see how you can blame Uber for that.

xapata 10y ago

Why is it not right for drivers, but perfectly fine for migrant farm workers? Perhaps society owes these people more, but not Uber.

ams6110 10y ago
I didn't see that claim in GP post.
- xapata 10y ago
  True, I only inferred it from the statement that Uber owes them more. It's possible that maxfurman believes all low-wage employers owe more.
loafa 10y ago
Since so-called "migrant farm workers" tend to be there illegally, what society owes them is a hearty punishment followed by a deportation. Or if you're talking about the legal migrant farm workers, then what society owes them is the deportation of the illegals, so that they no longer have to compete on price with an unlimited number of people who shouldn't be there. It's no surprise that unenforced immigration laws plus an open border to a third-world country drives down unskilled labour prices. Heck, once we get rid of the illegals we may find that Uber prices go up too. The US doesn't really have an oversupply of unskilled labour.
- burkaman 10y ago
  What do you mean by "hearty punishment"?
  - loafa 10y ago
    I don't really want to derail the conversation into the virtues of corporal punishment, but I'm a big fan of that as a cost-effective method that everyone can fear equally. (Prison is, perversely, more pleasant for the sort of person that usually goes to prison than for the sort of person who doesn't.) It can't just be "deportation", though. The penalty for stealing a car isn't just that you have to give the car back. The punishment for being found in the country illegally has to be severe enough that people are actually discouraged from making the attempt (or to deport themselves if they're there at the moment). In Australia, our illegal immigrants tend to wind up spending a long time in an immigration detention centre while awaiting trial, which is strictly speaking an administrative need but winds up working as a pretty good punishment. I'm not sure if this scales up to the American system though as you have a lot more people you're gonna need to process.
    - woofyman 10y ago
      If you really wanted to stop undocumented workers, punish the employers. One Trump cabinet pick recently fired a house hold employee because of their status. That sort of thing use to be disqualifying. Not any more.
      - loafa 10y ago
        That's a good start, we need to work both ends of the problem. Mind you, since the government doesn't have any reliable means of determining whether somebody is in the country legally or not I'm not sure how we can hold employers responsible either. The only way we could hold employers responsible is if there's a reliable system which allows people to check on others' immigration status at any time. And is that what we want?
    - lanaius 10y ago
      The US has plenty of existing immigration detention centers: https://www.ice.gov/detention-facilities https://www.ice.gov/detention-facilities.

1_2__3 10y ago

> Uber owes its drivers more. Why? Not trying to be snarky; why do they owe their drivers anything but incentive to work for them (which seems sufficient, or we wouldn't even be having this conversation int he first place). Expecting companies to be morally upstanding is silly and a modern invention by the right. The right way to solve this is now by complaining about what Uber "owes" its drivers but in legislation. But we don't want to legislate businesses, we want to stay "nimble" and "flexible", so this is what we get as a result. Don't complain about lying in the bed we've made.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
burkaman 10y ago
Well, some states and cities and drivers have also made legal arguments that Uber owes its drivers more, but they don't seem to be winning (yet?).
kafkaesq 10y ago
Not trying to be snarky; why do they owe their drivers anything but incentive to work for them? Because karma is bitch, and history bites back. And if Uber doesn't step up to the plate, and start doing what's not only right for its drivers, but (by any common-sense analysis) also right for its own balance sheets in the long term (as opposed to what appears to be right in the short-term for its megalomaniacal expansion plans)-- that is, make driving a sustainable profession to be in, and not just a "well as long as times aren't so great, let's see how long we can get away with screwing these people" (as appears to be their current motto) profession -- then soon enough, it's going to bite back on them -- hard.
- diminoten 10y ago
  What does "times aren't so great" mean?
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    The state of the economy (and life in general) for people who aren't tech workers, these days.

djrogers 10y ago

> One driver mentioned in the article leased his car from Uber and sleeps in it because it's the only way he can make enough to afford the payments. You obviously didn't read the whole article (although the author clearly tried to bury this at the end) - quote from the same driver: “I signed up for this because I am my boss. I kind of own the business. I have the freedom and that’s a beautiful thing,” and “These labor advocates, they don’t know what it’s like to be a driver. They think we’re not being treated right, but I’m happy. If I didn’t like it, I would do something else.”

tway13465234 10y ago
This jibes with my experience. Throwaway because reasons and personal. I was doing work for <large, billion dollar tech company everyone knows> as an hourly contractor. I left to do some "sharing economy" stuff that, although is not the same as doing rideshares for Uber, it's something that's very, very similar. It involves driving. The changes that it brought were: - Not having to do work that, at the end of the day, is the opposite of fulfilling - Not having to answer for dumb, avoidable mistakes when the responsibility inevitably diffuses throughout the whole team - Not having to deal with the workplace sociopaths who cause them - Not being subjected to the whims of a mercurial, micromanaging supervisor - Not having the stress of all these things creep into my life outside work The downside to leaving and opting for what I'm doing now is basically this: big pay cut. I'm not a SV rockstar and have no nest egg, but this is paying for groceries and rent for the time being. I can say unequivocally that in regards to all these factors that people pretend to care about, I'm far more well off than I would have been at my former workplace, and yet if I had stayed, no one would have batted an eye and feigned to sympathize with the plight that resulted from those circumstances, because it was a "real" job. I honestly could not give a relatable damn about the "I have my own schedule" aspects. I'm very big on planning, and the truth is that I'm able to make plans that stick even better than when I was at <the company>. By far the most important part is that when I'm not driving, I'm able to do things in my offtime that keep me sharp. Before leaving, the idea that I could, say, build up my skills in my time off until something better comes along, was totally out of the question. I'd compare trying to stave off the braindamage of dealing with daily workplace nonsense to be similar to trying to maintain a healthy physique so that you're fit enough to enjoy your daily jog, all while your paycheck somehow relies on subjecting your body to junk food, soda, and cigarettes. Now, I've got side projects and interesting avenues of research to explore.

jimmytucson 10y ago

Have you ever read about the commercial freight industry? Ever heard of truck stops?

r00fus 10y ago
Human freight is a bit different, neh? The idea that my driver is overnighting in his/her car is not appealing to me as a rider. Does Uber not care about their image? Next time I Uber/Lyft (rare, usually just airport shuttle) I'm going to ask about that.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

strken 10y ago

The "drivers can choose" argument is important because it shows that for at least one driver it is genuinely preferable to sleep in his car and work 70 hours a week than do anything else. Clearly, drivers are facing unemployment, poverty, or working conditions that are even worse. It would be very easy to regulate the hell out of Uber and turn the unicorn into a donkey. However, that wouldn't improve the conditions that those in the economic class of drivers are subject to, it would just make them less visible. Fixing the Uber problem without providing any alternative employment options is a superficial placebo to make the wealthy feel more comfortable, because it doesn't correct any of the underlying economic problems. Those drivers will still exist, they'll just be pushed into agriculture, sweatshops, and dingy housing projects; hidden places, where nobody else has to look at them again. There's a very good article called The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics[0] which states that "when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it", and "if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster." This seems to be the case with Uber, where they make money from a social and economic problem where there's an oversupply of unskilled labour, and thus get blamed for the working conditions that were already a reality for so many hidden and unnoticed people, even if they incrementally improve those conditions. This is not a call to give Uber free rein, but rather to consider drivers as more or less rational human beings capable of making their own choices, and to consider driver wellbeing in that light. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20160806191858/https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ http://web.archive.org/web/20160806191858/https://blog.jaibo...

hackuser 10y ago
> It would be very easy to regulate the hell out of Uber and turn the unicorn into a donkey. However, that wouldn't improve the conditions that those in the economic class of drivers are subject to It's a bit of a strawman to use the hyperbole; plenty of industries are regulated, not regulated "the hell out of", and very profitable too. Also, I disagree with the second statement; labor regulations have a long history of helping workers and still do. They enjoy a 40 hour workweek, overtime, safe working conditions, protection for collective bargaining and much more. It's the places where these things are absent, such as Uber and their non-employees, where people suffer more. Of course, anything can be taken too far, but unless workers have real power and leverage, they will be taken advantage of. It may sound like economics, but it's not coincidence that everything the right wing promote strengthens business and/or weakens labor. The economic rationalizations are post-hoc talking points.

rhaps0dy 10y ago

I'll quote the end of the article: “This job is not for everyone. Don’t get it twisted,” he said. “These labor advocates, they don’t know what it’s like to be a driver. They think we’re not being treated right, but I’m happy. If I didn’t like it, I would do something else.”

yabatopia 10y ago
A modern day example of Stockholm Syndrome?
- yarou 10y ago
  Nope, you totally missed the pure wisdom in the driver's quote. His point is that academics in ivory towers who make policy decisions are so far removed from his reality, that they are ill-equipped to make appropriate policy decisions on his behalf. He's asking labor advocates to engage with him, rather than hand down a potentially disastrous policy decision. Government drones could really learn a thing or two from that guy.

maverick_iceman 10y ago

If someone's choosing that then it means the alternative is even worse. I don't see how you can blame Uber for that.