8 ms·

Uber Is Locking Out NYC Drivers Mid-Shift to Lower Minimum Pay

77 points by aspenmayer 2y ago

aspenmayer 2y ago
https://archive.is/x5Ywo https://archive.is/x5Ywo
elmerfud 2y ago
"...making it difficult for drivers to plan work shifts and treat Uber as a full-time job." So which is it they want flexible gig work that they can do at their own schedule in their own pace, or do they want planned work shifts in a full-time job. It seems what drivers are really asking for his money without any work. Because taking flexible gig work means you have the flexibility to work when you want without planning. So why wouldn't your employer also demand that same flexibility to say too many gig workers we're going to kick some of you out and you can't get back in. It seems to me that this is just the nature of what we call "day laborers". I know the "on an iPhone" phenomenon people think this idea of day labor or gig work is new. It's not it's been around since the beginning of time. Day laborers show up at a certain spot people who need day laborers show up at that spot pick who they want leave behind those that they do not want and that's that. This is literally no different. Uber drivers wanted that flexibility day labor gig work and then started crying because they wanted a more stable income than what day labor provides. So they got the law involved to say well you got to pay people for standing around. Uber says fine you're no longer standing around for us so you don't need to be paid. If you want a steady job get a steady job if you want day labor work you show up and sometimes you get picked for the day labor and sometimes you go home broke.
- quantified 2y ago
  There isn't an "Uber driver" in that sense any more than there is a "person". Early on it was part-time and more gig labor. When you're being leased the vehicle via Uber themselves [https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/vehicle-solutions/ https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/vehicle-solutions/] it's definitely pushing towards real job. I wonder how many of those locked-out drivers are paying for those cars on the lease program, or if they get preference. Take a taxi, people!
  - elmerfud 2y ago
    But you're acting like this is an "on an iPhone" experience that's new to the world. The idea of being leased equipment from someone for contract or gig labor is not new and hasn't been new for many many decades. So if you're complaining about the idea that companies who hire contract labor or gig work style labor can also lease out equipment necessary to do that labor, should the person choose to lease it from them, then where have you been for the past 50 60 years or more. Because no one is required to lease equipment from Uber in order to work for Uber it's just an option. There are great many professions that work like this and have for much longer than Uber has been a thing. Often times mechanics are this way. They can lease their tools through an employer-sponsored program but they have no control on whether the employer needs them to work every day and if they'll get paid in many situations. Because often times that that work is also gig work if no one needs their car fixed you can show up and not get anything. That's only one of a great many examples of jobs that are like this. When you have flexibility your employer has flexibility as well. I think there's a great many jobs that have stupid conditions on employment and I wouldn't work them unless I absolutely had no other option. Uber is one of those things. People like the flexibility but flexibility can cut both ways. Often I hear Uber drivers talking about how they're their own Boss but if you're accepting work orders from someone else you're at the mercy of them for the work. This is the same thing in many salons. To work there you have to buy a seat and pay for that and pay for equipment oftentimes that is on a loan or a lease and you're your own Boss but you have a very limited control on when or if you will get customers. Which is another job that I wouldn't work unless I had no choice at all. So this is not pushing toward a real job in any sense anymore than any of these other flexible gig work style jobs which permeate our society. So if you're against this as a whole then you should have been against it for the past 70 plus years. But if you feel this is some new Uber phenomenon you are greatly mistaken and need to learn how many of the jobs in the market work.
    - lazyasciiart 2y ago
      How was that comment acting like this is an "on an iPhone" experience that's new to the world?
    - quantified 2y ago
- jkaplowitz 2y ago
  To me this just means the workers need to be able to negotiate for either a standard or driver-selected minimum shift duration for billing purposes, just like most independent contractors can achieve by negotiating the terms of their contracts when finding clients. Every time I hire a moving company the hourly rate bills a contractual minimum number of hours per job regardless of actual time needed. Nothing about this concept is incompatible with flexible gig work. I realize that individual drivers have far less power in setting the terms of the relationships with Uber and Lyft than individual moving companies have over their client relationships, so drivers’ negotiations here will require either union-style collective action or advocacy for changes to NYC’s rules here.
  - elmerfud 2y ago
    I'm not saying it shouldn't change. What I'm saying is this is more commonplace than what people believe. Hair stylists, auto mechanics, construction workers in many places, they all work under these conditions and have for many years. There's many more professions that offer flexibility that also work under these conditions. Often times these same people because they're individuals do not have any collective bargaining to make a better deal. They simply take the deal that's available and hope to make it work. Often times it doesn't work but for some it does and works consistently. I do think there's a general expectation that a flexible work when you want styled job should only be a benefit to the employee. They seem to feel that the employer shouldn't be able to tell them when their work is no longer required. Because there are other jobs besides Uber and if they wanted to work those less flexible jobs they could. Those less flexible jobs tend to come with the kind of contractual stability you're talking about. For example your hiring of a moving company is something you can track for in advance. That contract is in place they can provide the laborers when and where they're needed. I don't believe it's a fair example to compare to Uber. Uber would be more akin to a pool of day laborers. Contractors show up they need five guys to roof a house. When they get to the job site maybe they realize that nothing is ready so they all go home with a pittance if anything at all. And that is the risk of the flexibility of day labor. Is it right? Well that kind of flexibility in your work comes with risks and downsides. Because sometimes the contractor will show up and they'll need 25 guys to frame five houses that day but there's only a pool of 10 people. So that risk cuts both ways.
- s17n 2y ago
  Obviously, what people want is full time jobs. That's what the whole political battle over these platforms is about.
  - testfoobar 2y ago
    Not everyone though - freelancers and contractors in particular want to work on their terms.
    - larkost 2y ago
      I think the issue is that in this case the drivers want to work on their terms, and Uber/Lift want to be able to limit the number of drivers at certain times (i.e.: work their terms) in order not to pay minimum wage to lot of drivers when there are too many drivers logged-in (and thus just sitting around). There are aspects that are unfair for both parties... and this is exactly the sort of situation that Uber/Lift have setup: it is going to be exploitive to someone. The companies just thought it could always be them doing the exploiting.
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    Some people do, some certainly do not
- nilamo 2y ago
  Maybe all of these issues would be solved of they were salaried employees, who could drive when they wanted...
  - qeternity 2y ago
    What?!? Would you employee people full-time and let them work whenever they felt like it?
    - ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
      Salaried !== full-time. Millions of people in the UK are legally salaried workers on "zero-hours" contracts, where they aren't even guaranteed a minimum number of hours. Paid through PAYE (payroll), have workers rights, just not a guaranteed number of hours. Most can choose when they work, many have more than one of these jobs. It's not a good way to live but it's at least possibly a better way to live than the gig economy.
      - bpodgursky 2y ago
        Yes but the UK has the NHS, it's not possible in the US where employees have to healthcare benefits by federal mandate. You can't have an employee on the payroll costing $1,500 a month in benefits who can choose to work 0 hours in a month.
        larkost 2y ago
        I think you are missing a part of the Federal Healthcare Insurance Mandate (part of the ACA): the mandate is on the worker, not the employer. Many employers have no insurance benefits for their employers. And then the other part of it: the penalty for not having healthcare insurance was deducted to $0 at the end of 2018. So there is currently no penalty at all (other than the massive ones if you get sick) to not carrying insurance.
        bpodgursky 2y ago
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  It’s very different from day laborers in that day laborers get to work for a day; and these drivers get to work until Uber says so. And one can guess that Uber is trying to minimize the hours worked per driver due to regulatory concerns. The day laborer knows when they’re not picked to work. The Uber driver needs to keep checking all day presumably
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  "If you want a steady job get a steady job if you want day labor work you show up and sometimes you get picked for the day labor and sometimes you go home broke." If it was that easy right? Nobody wants to be 'day labor', that is only done in countries with a large surplus of labor (desperate to live labor) that allows companies to treat humans more like cattle.
- freeone3000 2y ago
  Dude, nobody wants the instability of a gig job. It’s just all there is at the bottom. Uber will actually pay you something, unlike other taxi or driver jobs which have dried up. It’s folks fighting over crumbs: I bet you Uber drivers would love a stable taxi job, there just isn’t one.
- lmm 2y ago
  With day labour the clue is in the name, you get hired for the day. They can't send you home halfway through, or at least they still have to pay you a full day.
- WheatMillington 2y ago
  You're setting an incredibly low bar for what we should accept. We're talking about people's livelihoods here - their ability to put food on their family's table.
  - Ferret7446 2y ago
    Companies are not obliged to hire people so they can feed themselves. More nihilistically/pragmatically, reality is not obliged to ensure humans can live happy lives or even survive. (And the difference between reality and fantasy is that reality asserts itself even if you don't accept it.)
- sixothree 2y ago
  By your reasoning literally every job is “gig work”.
ziml77 2y ago
I learned within the past year that Uber sucks for drivers around NYC. The T&LC rules mean that someone who's not registered can't take pickups in NYC. They can still drop you off though, so Uber considers it valid to assign a non-T&LC vehicle to drive into NYC. Of course when that happens, the driver has an empty car going back the other way. It's awful for their pay and a big waste of energy and road space. Some drivers will just deal with it, but many end up asking if you're going into NYC. If you're lucky they will cancel the ride immediately, but if not then you have to wait for them to drive by your pickup spot before canceling the ride (which I have to assume is so they can say that they couldn't find you). When I do need a car into the city and it's serviced by a non-T&LC driver, I now make sure to leave a huge tip to make up for Uber not giving drivers an option to not be matched with people going into NYC.
- avree 2y ago
  Uber drivers have been able to see the approximate destination before accepting the ride for over a year now in all markets.
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    Yeah, which is why it's confusing that my mom had two drivers reject her the last time she needed to get to the airport when I wasn't able to give her a ride to JFK.
    - kevmo314 2y ago
      Wow, we've gone full circle. I remember when being able to reliably get an Uber to JFK was a selling point over taxis.
      - holowoodman 2y ago
        Isn't there a subway connection or something? I mean, it is an international airport and a big city...
farceSpherule 2y ago
F*ck Uber. I wish the United States would do what Greece did.
- sdwr 2y ago
  Implement a 6 day work week?
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
  Negative gdp growth and a rapidly declining standard of living?
  - gruez 2y ago
    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=chart&country=~GRC https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?... It's not great, but not exactly "rapidly declining standard of living". "Negative gdp growth" can be argued either way depending on what time window you're using.
  - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
    Miraculously, the US has managed to achieve positive gdp growth and a rapidly declining standard of living.
- hnpolicestate 2y ago
  Agreed. Yellow cabs were and are great. Have lived in NYC all 36 years of my life. Delivery drivers used to get paid fairly before door dash too. All these rent seekers need to go.
  - cooljacob204 2y ago
    Lol having also lived in NYC my entire life yellow cabs were not and are not great. And I don't know a single person who would say it is. Delivery drivers never got paid fairly either. Idk what imaginary version of NYC you live in.
CodeWriter23 2y ago
[flagged]
curtis3389 2y ago
> At the heart of the move, say the two companies, is a six-year-old pay rule in New York that, among other things, requires firms like Uber and Lyft to pay drivers for the idle time they rack up between rides. Remember, Uber and Lyft were created to get around labor laws, and here we see the companies continuing to try to skirt labor laws. It is a standard move of capitalists to fight regulations tooth and nail to try to protect their profit margins. These are fundamentally unprofitable businesses built on exploiting vulnerable workers.
- brigadier132 2y ago
  Seems like they are following the letter of the law.
- testfoobar 2y ago
  If this were true, how would you explain that both drivers and riders enter into the relationship voluntarily. Most of my uber drivers have been intelligent and knowledgeable about their options - quite the opposite of exploited and vulnerable.
  - CodeWriter23 2y ago
    How do you explain a College Student with no disposable income signing up for a Credit Card? I drove for Uber/Lyft for a while. I fully understood I was converting the equity in my car into meals and rent. Most people don't get that at all.
    - testfoobar 2y ago
      Adults are free to make a wide array of legal, ethical, but nevertheless terrible decisions. An example is poor dietary choices. All jobs are a conversion of time/skill/knowledge/strength/etc. into a fungible token, money. That fungible token is then used to meet other needs: food and shelter being top of the list. In many parts of the developing world, a person cannot eat if they don't work that day. In the best case scenario, you come out ahead - where the resources you put in are returned n-fold. An I-Banker grinding out 80+ hour weeks is giving up time with friends and family and perhaps compromising health. Is that person exploited? Anybody who has driven for a ride sharing company understands that their vehicle will take on excess wear-and-tear and they have to pay for gas. They presumably compare against other jobs and pick ride sharing driver freely. I would say it is rather condescending to refer to adults making informed decisions in their own self-interest as vulnerable and exploited.
subsubzero 2y ago
Uber owns the thing that the taxi companies don't have, a complex, real time transactional application that pairs drivers with riders. They can pick and choose who they want using it(sans discriminatory, see - illegal checks). And they are well within their means to say when a driver can and can't work on their own platform. If drivers want to be rid of this menace - Uber, then they are free to become cab drivers if they wish. Or use Lyft. Nobody gets paid for not producing which is what these drivers seem to want.
- PNWChris 2y ago
  Is this the case? I was under the impression that Uber has to act as a pure play buyer-seller matching system. Otherwise the drivers aren’t independent contractors, they’re being controlled like employees.
  - gruez 2y ago
    That was the case before NYC instituted laws that mandated drivers be paid for idle time, converting them to basically employees.
  - larkost 2y ago
    That is a great argument... but one that has not yet completed its way though U.S. courts. My understanding is that both Uber and Lift vary the arrangement from market-to-market (sometimes within a country, but mostly between countries), but that at least in the U.S. the drivers have no ability to set their prices at all, but rather only have the ability to accept/decline a ride that has a price already attached. And if they decline too many rides (as defined by opaque decisions by the companies), that they then are penalized by being shown less possible rides. To me this is a worst combination of being an employee and a true independent contractor.
- evanb 2y ago
  T+LC cabs use Curb, which can call taxis and be used only as a payment method. https://www.gocurb.com/ https://www.gocurb.com/
mannyv 2y ago
Company is minimizing its costs. News at 11.
diebeforei485 2y ago
It's a stupid rule to require drivers to be paid simply for logging in.
- taylorbuley 2y ago
  The economics here are pretty pure. It seems intentional. I wouldn't call it stupid even if wrongheaded. But, to me, this cannot be an unintended side-effect. It's a feature, not a bug, of the regulatory model.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >But, to me, this cannot be an unintended side-effect. It's a feature, not a bug, of the regulatory model. I think you're giving politicians/regulators too much credit. Skimming the media coverage about this law, the supporters' for the law is a vague sense of "we need to ensure delivery/taxi drivers are paid better". I couldn't find any serious discussions for what would the second order effects of the laws would be (ie. what would happen if uber decides to lock out drivers so they don't have to pay them) eg. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/nyc-minimum-wage-delivery-drivers-upheld-by-appeals-court-2023-12-01/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/nyc-minimum-wage-de... >"This minimum pay rate will guarantee our delivery workers and their families can earn a living and keep our city’s legendary restaurant industry going strong," Adams said in a statement. >Supporters of the city's law, which is the first of its kind in the United States, say it is needed because delivery workers in the city earn about $11 an hour on average after expenses, far below the city's $15 minimum wage.
throawayonthe 2y ago
[dead]
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
Like it or not, in the current US Capitalist's Environment (as opposed to some mythical earlier time when corporations were supposed to have some social responsibility), in this current environment, Humans are a Commodity. If there is a human surplus, the cost(pay) goes down. If there is a human shortage, the price(pay) goes up. When there are fewer desperate humans needing Uber to eat, and Uber can't find drivers, then suddenly Uber will start paying and treating people better. This is only newsworthy because Uber by its nature of having all independent contractors with a very obvious 'market' linking drivers to passengers. Makes this clear. It becomes very starkly clear the value of the driver and how much a human is worth. And that Uber can tweak their algorithms to minimize how much drivers are paid, thus providing a 'market' price for humans. Uber isn't special, it is just this human value is starkly on display.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  LOL I would like more feedback. Am I being downvoted by 'Capitalist's', because it sounds like I'm anti-free market? When really, I'm just outlining what a market is, how things are? Or Am I being downvoted by 'Socialist', because it sounds like I'm advocating that Capitalisms is the natural order and humans are commodities, and is just how things are? It is very hard to tell what line is being crossed.
- gruez 2y ago
  >Like it or not, in the current US Capitalist's Environment (as opposed to some mythical earlier time when corporations were supposed to have some social responsibility), in this current environment, Humans are a Commodity. Is that supposed to be bad? "Commodity" just means something that could be bought and sold. Is it bad that I can buy people's time, or that I can sell my time? Was it better in communism where you couldn't buy or sell labor because it was all controlled by the state, and you still had to work? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_parasitism_(offense) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_parasitism_(offense)
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    I don't think I mentioned communism anywhere, even once. Or made any argument supporting it. I simply explained what a market is. I guess even not having the correct 'stringent tone' in favor of capitalism can make you a communist now. It is super hard to tell, not the first time I've simply explained a free market and been called a communist. It's almost like you have to express cult like warship for the 'idea' of a free market or you are communist. "buy people's time" Sounds so benign, but from the thread, I think it was pretty clear that we aren't just talking time. Some of the other examples used are really about "people so desperate they would do anything", which is also as you say not "bad", lives are "just something that could be bought and sold". Again, I'm not saying anything in favor of communism. I'm just outlining a market. Companies are people right? Time is money, life is time. Desperate times call for desperate measures, all's fair, and on and on. Lets not be all pro-free-market, then clutch our pearls when it leads to some questionable choices.
cs702 2y ago
Uber and Lyft underpriced their car service for years and years, killing off a lot traditional competition, i.e., independent taxi and limo companies. Now, both Uber and Lyft seek to be profitable... so they are squeezing every possible penny out of riders and drivers. If it looks, smells, and tastes like a Doo-Oh-Poh-Lee, it probably is one.
rpbiwer2 2y ago
I feel like I often hear these kinds of stories about Uber, but rarely about Lyft. Is Lyft actually better, or are they just more under the radar?
crazygringo 2y ago
First of all, this is partially the result of clearly terrible lawmaking: > In emails to drivers, Uber and Lyft have blamed each other — and the commission — for lockouts. In its minimum-pay formula, the TLC calculates non-passenger time as an industry average. When Lyft drivers aren’t as busy, for example, Uber has to increase driver pay because non-passenger time is higher on average. “The city’s rule bizarrely holds Uber responsible for Lyft’s failures,” said Uber spokesperson Freddi Goldstein. “With Lyft struggling to keep drivers busy, we don’t have other options.” But secondly, genuinely what other outcome would the lawmakers have expected? Previously, drivers could drive whenever they wanted, and they'd make more money in periods of higher unmet demand, which would lead to more drivers on the road during times of peak demand (good), and then drivers could decide for themselves whether it was worth it to drive in times of slow demand -- even if this resulted in less than minimum wage. Now, if there's a requirement that all drivers must make minimum wage, then during times of low demand, Uber/Lyft/etc. are forced to simply boot off a bunch of drivers so that there are enough fares left for the remaining drivers so they will be able to make minimum wage. And there's no obvious "fair" way to do that. You can't do it with pricing like before (since that's been made illegal), so it's necessarily going to be some kind of random lottery. And since demand fluctuates in ways that aren't always predictable (like rain), you can't really plan/schedule in advance. So drivers just get randomly deactivated right now -- instead of making less than minimum wage, they make nothing. I just don't see another way -- once a period of peak demand ends (like after morning rush hour), some drivers are going to have to be booted off if you want to maintain minimum wage. Don't blame Uber. I don't see how the law could have resulted in any other outcome.
- mrgoldenbrown 2y ago
  >during times of low demand, Uber/Lyft/etc. are forced to simply boot off a bunch of drivers so that there are enough fares left for the remaining drivers so they will be able to make minimum wage. You are claiming a false binary. They could hire drivers as employees. Or work together as an industry to make things work out, the same way they cooperate to oppose any legislation that threatens profits or promises worker rights.
  - 2y ago

77 points by aspenmayer 2y ago

https://archive.is/x5Ywo https://archive.is/x5Ywo

"...making it difficult for drivers to plan work shifts and treat Uber as a full-time job." So which is it they want flexible gig work that they can do at their own schedule in their own pace, or do they want planned work shifts in a full-time job. It seems what drivers are really asking for his money without any work. Because taking flexible gig work means you have the flexibility to work when you want without planning. So why wouldn't your employer also demand that same flexibility to say too many gig workers we're going to kick some of you out and you can't get back in. It seems to me that this is just the nature of what we call "day laborers". I know the "on an iPhone" phenomenon people think this idea of day labor or gig work is new. It's not it's been around since the beginning of time. Day laborers show up at a certain spot people who need day laborers show up at that spot pick who they want leave behind those that they do not want and that's that. This is literally no different. Uber drivers wanted that flexibility day labor gig work and then started crying because they wanted a more stable income than what day labor provides. So they got the law involved to say well you got to pay people for standing around. Uber says fine you're no longer standing around for us so you don't need to be paid. If you want a steady job get a steady job if you want day labor work you show up and sometimes you get picked for the day labor and sometimes you go home broke.

quantified 2y ago
There isn't an "Uber driver" in that sense any more than there is a "person". Early on it was part-time and more gig labor. When you're being leased the vehicle via Uber themselves [https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/vehicle-solutions/ https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/vehicle-solutions/] it's definitely pushing towards real job. I wonder how many of those locked-out drivers are paying for those cars on the lease program, or if they get preference. Take a taxi, people!
- elmerfud 2y ago
  But you're acting like this is an "on an iPhone" experience that's new to the world. The idea of being leased equipment from someone for contract or gig labor is not new and hasn't been new for many many decades. So if you're complaining about the idea that companies who hire contract labor or gig work style labor can also lease out equipment necessary to do that labor, should the person choose to lease it from them, then where have you been for the past 50 60 years or more. Because no one is required to lease equipment from Uber in order to work for Uber it's just an option. There are great many professions that work like this and have for much longer than Uber has been a thing. Often times mechanics are this way. They can lease their tools through an employer-sponsored program but they have no control on whether the employer needs them to work every day and if they'll get paid in many situations. Because often times that that work is also gig work if no one needs their car fixed you can show up and not get anything. That's only one of a great many examples of jobs that are like this. When you have flexibility your employer has flexibility as well. I think there's a great many jobs that have stupid conditions on employment and I wouldn't work them unless I absolutely had no other option. Uber is one of those things. People like the flexibility but flexibility can cut both ways. Often I hear Uber drivers talking about how they're their own Boss but if you're accepting work orders from someone else you're at the mercy of them for the work. This is the same thing in many salons. To work there you have to buy a seat and pay for that and pay for equipment oftentimes that is on a loan or a lease and you're your own Boss but you have a very limited control on when or if you will get customers. Which is another job that I wouldn't work unless I had no choice at all. So this is not pushing toward a real job in any sense anymore than any of these other flexible gig work style jobs which permeate our society. So if you're against this as a whole then you should have been against it for the past 70 plus years. But if you feel this is some new Uber phenomenon you are greatly mistaken and need to learn how many of the jobs in the market work.
  - lazyasciiart 2y ago
    How was that comment acting like this is an "on an iPhone" experience that's new to the world?
  - quantified 2y ago
jkaplowitz 2y ago
To me this just means the workers need to be able to negotiate for either a standard or driver-selected minimum shift duration for billing purposes, just like most independent contractors can achieve by negotiating the terms of their contracts when finding clients. Every time I hire a moving company the hourly rate bills a contractual minimum number of hours per job regardless of actual time needed. Nothing about this concept is incompatible with flexible gig work. I realize that individual drivers have far less power in setting the terms of the relationships with Uber and Lyft than individual moving companies have over their client relationships, so drivers’ negotiations here will require either union-style collective action or advocacy for changes to NYC’s rules here.
- elmerfud 2y ago
  I'm not saying it shouldn't change. What I'm saying is this is more commonplace than what people believe. Hair stylists, auto mechanics, construction workers in many places, they all work under these conditions and have for many years. There's many more professions that offer flexibility that also work under these conditions. Often times these same people because they're individuals do not have any collective bargaining to make a better deal. They simply take the deal that's available and hope to make it work. Often times it doesn't work but for some it does and works consistently. I do think there's a general expectation that a flexible work when you want styled job should only be a benefit to the employee. They seem to feel that the employer shouldn't be able to tell them when their work is no longer required. Because there are other jobs besides Uber and if they wanted to work those less flexible jobs they could. Those less flexible jobs tend to come with the kind of contractual stability you're talking about. For example your hiring of a moving company is something you can track for in advance. That contract is in place they can provide the laborers when and where they're needed. I don't believe it's a fair example to compare to Uber. Uber would be more akin to a pool of day laborers. Contractors show up they need five guys to roof a house. When they get to the job site maybe they realize that nothing is ready so they all go home with a pittance if anything at all. And that is the risk of the flexibility of day labor. Is it right? Well that kind of flexibility in your work comes with risks and downsides. Because sometimes the contractor will show up and they'll need 25 guys to frame five houses that day but there's only a pool of 10 people. So that risk cuts both ways.
s17n 2y ago
Obviously, what people want is full time jobs. That's what the whole political battle over these platforms is about.
- testfoobar 2y ago
  Not everyone though - freelancers and contractors in particular want to work on their terms.
  - larkost 2y ago
    I think the issue is that in this case the drivers want to work on their terms, and Uber/Lift want to be able to limit the number of drivers at certain times (i.e.: work their terms) in order not to pay minimum wage to lot of drivers when there are too many drivers logged-in (and thus just sitting around). There are aspects that are unfair for both parties... and this is exactly the sort of situation that Uber/Lift have setup: it is going to be exploitive to someone. The companies just thought it could always be them doing the exploiting.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  Some people do, some certainly do not
nilamo 2y ago
Maybe all of these issues would be solved of they were salaried employees, who could drive when they wanted...
- qeternity 2y ago
  What?!? Would you employee people full-time and let them work whenever they felt like it?
  - ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
    Salaried !== full-time. Millions of people in the UK are legally salaried workers on "zero-hours" contracts, where they aren't even guaranteed a minimum number of hours. Paid through PAYE (payroll), have workers rights, just not a guaranteed number of hours. Most can choose when they work, many have more than one of these jobs. It's not a good way to live but it's at least possibly a better way to live than the gig economy.
    - bpodgursky 2y ago
      Yes but the UK has the NHS, it's not possible in the US where employees have to healthcare benefits by federal mandate. You can't have an employee on the payroll costing $1,500 a month in benefits who can choose to work 0 hours in a month.
      - larkost 2y ago
        I think you are missing a part of the Federal Healthcare Insurance Mandate (part of the ACA): the mandate is on the worker, not the employer. Many employers have no insurance benefits for their employers. And then the other part of it: the penalty for not having healthcare insurance was deducted to $0 at the end of 2018. So there is currently no penalty at all (other than the massive ones if you get sick) to not carrying insurance.
        bpodgursky 2y ago
jncfhnb 2y ago
It’s very different from day laborers in that day laborers get to work for a day; and these drivers get to work until Uber says so. And one can guess that Uber is trying to minimize the hours worked per driver due to regulatory concerns. The day laborer knows when they’re not picked to work. The Uber driver needs to keep checking all day presumably
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
"If you want a steady job get a steady job if you want day labor work you show up and sometimes you get picked for the day labor and sometimes you go home broke." If it was that easy right? Nobody wants to be 'day labor', that is only done in countries with a large surplus of labor (desperate to live labor) that allows companies to treat humans more like cattle.
freeone3000 2y ago
Dude, nobody wants the instability of a gig job. It’s just all there is at the bottom. Uber will actually pay you something, unlike other taxi or driver jobs which have dried up. It’s folks fighting over crumbs: I bet you Uber drivers would love a stable taxi job, there just isn’t one.
lmm 2y ago
With day labour the clue is in the name, you get hired for the day. They can't send you home halfway through, or at least they still have to pay you a full day.
WheatMillington 2y ago
You're setting an incredibly low bar for what we should accept. We're talking about people's livelihoods here - their ability to put food on their family's table.
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  Companies are not obliged to hire people so they can feed themselves. More nihilistically/pragmatically, reality is not obliged to ensure humans can live happy lives or even survive. (And the difference between reality and fantasy is that reality asserts itself even if you don't accept it.)
sixothree 2y ago
By your reasoning literally every job is “gig work”.

ziml77 2y ago

I learned within the past year that Uber sucks for drivers around NYC. The T&LC rules mean that someone who's not registered can't take pickups in NYC. They can still drop you off though, so Uber considers it valid to assign a non-T&LC vehicle to drive into NYC. Of course when that happens, the driver has an empty car going back the other way. It's awful for their pay and a big waste of energy and road space. Some drivers will just deal with it, but many end up asking if you're going into NYC. If you're lucky they will cancel the ride immediately, but if not then you have to wait for them to drive by your pickup spot before canceling the ride (which I have to assume is so they can say that they couldn't find you). When I do need a car into the city and it's serviced by a non-T&LC driver, I now make sure to leave a huge tip to make up for Uber not giving drivers an option to not be matched with people going into NYC.

avree 2y ago
Uber drivers have been able to see the approximate destination before accepting the ride for over a year now in all markets.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  Yeah, which is why it's confusing that my mom had two drivers reject her the last time she needed to get to the airport when I wasn't able to give her a ride to JFK.
  - kevmo314 2y ago
    Wow, we've gone full circle. I remember when being able to reliably get an Uber to JFK was a selling point over taxis.
    - holowoodman 2y ago
      Isn't there a subway connection or something? I mean, it is an international airport and a big city...

farceSpherule 2y ago

F*ck Uber. I wish the United States would do what Greece did.

sdwr 2y ago
Implement a 6 day work week?
MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
Negative gdp growth and a rapidly declining standard of living?
- gruez 2y ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=chart&country=~GRC https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?... It's not great, but not exactly "rapidly declining standard of living". "Negative gdp growth" can be argued either way depending on what time window you're using.
- vsuperpower2020 2y ago
  Miraculously, the US has managed to achieve positive gdp growth and a rapidly declining standard of living.
hnpolicestate 2y ago
Agreed. Yellow cabs were and are great. Have lived in NYC all 36 years of my life. Delivery drivers used to get paid fairly before door dash too. All these rent seekers need to go.
- cooljacob204 2y ago
  Lol having also lived in NYC my entire life yellow cabs were not and are not great. And I don't know a single person who would say it is. Delivery drivers never got paid fairly either. Idk what imaginary version of NYC you live in.

CodeWriter23 2y ago

[flagged]

curtis3389 2y ago

> At the heart of the move, say the two companies, is a six-year-old pay rule in New York that, among other things, requires firms like Uber and Lyft to pay drivers for the idle time they rack up between rides. Remember, Uber and Lyft were created to get around labor laws, and here we see the companies continuing to try to skirt labor laws. It is a standard move of capitalists to fight regulations tooth and nail to try to protect their profit margins. These are fundamentally unprofitable businesses built on exploiting vulnerable workers.

brigadier132 2y ago
Seems like they are following the letter of the law.
testfoobar 2y ago
If this were true, how would you explain that both drivers and riders enter into the relationship voluntarily. Most of my uber drivers have been intelligent and knowledgeable about their options - quite the opposite of exploited and vulnerable.
- CodeWriter23 2y ago
  How do you explain a College Student with no disposable income signing up for a Credit Card? I drove for Uber/Lyft for a while. I fully understood I was converting the equity in my car into meals and rent. Most people don't get that at all.
  - testfoobar 2y ago
    Adults are free to make a wide array of legal, ethical, but nevertheless terrible decisions. An example is poor dietary choices. All jobs are a conversion of time/skill/knowledge/strength/etc. into a fungible token, money. That fungible token is then used to meet other needs: food and shelter being top of the list. In many parts of the developing world, a person cannot eat if they don't work that day. In the best case scenario, you come out ahead - where the resources you put in are returned n-fold. An I-Banker grinding out 80+ hour weeks is giving up time with friends and family and perhaps compromising health. Is that person exploited? Anybody who has driven for a ride sharing company understands that their vehicle will take on excess wear-and-tear and they have to pay for gas. They presumably compare against other jobs and pick ride sharing driver freely. I would say it is rather condescending to refer to adults making informed decisions in their own self-interest as vulnerable and exploited.

subsubzero 2y ago

Uber owns the thing that the taxi companies don't have, a complex, real time transactional application that pairs drivers with riders. They can pick and choose who they want using it(sans discriminatory, see - illegal checks). And they are well within their means to say when a driver can and can't work on their own platform. If drivers want to be rid of this menace - Uber, then they are free to become cab drivers if they wish. Or use Lyft. Nobody gets paid for not producing which is what these drivers seem to want.

PNWChris 2y ago
Is this the case? I was under the impression that Uber has to act as a pure play buyer-seller matching system. Otherwise the drivers aren’t independent contractors, they’re being controlled like employees.
- gruez 2y ago
  That was the case before NYC instituted laws that mandated drivers be paid for idle time, converting them to basically employees.
- larkost 2y ago
  That is a great argument... but one that has not yet completed its way though U.S. courts. My understanding is that both Uber and Lift vary the arrangement from market-to-market (sometimes within a country, but mostly between countries), but that at least in the U.S. the drivers have no ability to set their prices at all, but rather only have the ability to accept/decline a ride that has a price already attached. And if they decline too many rides (as defined by opaque decisions by the companies), that they then are penalized by being shown less possible rides. To me this is a worst combination of being an employee and a true independent contractor.
evanb 2y ago
T+LC cabs use Curb, which can call taxis and be used only as a payment method. https://www.gocurb.com/ https://www.gocurb.com/

mannyv 2y ago

Company is minimizing its costs. News at 11.

diebeforei485 2y ago

It's a stupid rule to require drivers to be paid simply for logging in.

taylorbuley 2y ago
The economics here are pretty pure. It seems intentional. I wouldn't call it stupid even if wrongheaded. But, to me, this cannot be an unintended side-effect. It's a feature, not a bug, of the regulatory model.
- gruez 2y ago
  >But, to me, this cannot be an unintended side-effect. It's a feature, not a bug, of the regulatory model. I think you're giving politicians/regulators too much credit. Skimming the media coverage about this law, the supporters' for the law is a vague sense of "we need to ensure delivery/taxi drivers are paid better". I couldn't find any serious discussions for what would the second order effects of the laws would be (ie. what would happen if uber decides to lock out drivers so they don't have to pay them) eg. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/nyc-minimum-wage-delivery-drivers-upheld-by-appeals-court-2023-12-01/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/nyc-minimum-wage-de... >"This minimum pay rate will guarantee our delivery workers and their families can earn a living and keep our city’s legendary restaurant industry going strong," Adams said in a statement. >Supporters of the city's law, which is the first of its kind in the United States, say it is needed because delivery workers in the city earn about $11 an hour on average after expenses, far below the city's $15 minimum wage.

throawayonthe 2y ago

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FrustratedMonky 2y ago

Like it or not, in the current US Capitalist's Environment (as opposed to some mythical earlier time when corporations were supposed to have some social responsibility), in this current environment, Humans are a Commodity. If there is a human surplus, the cost(pay) goes down. If there is a human shortage, the price(pay) goes up. When there are fewer desperate humans needing Uber to eat, and Uber can't find drivers, then suddenly Uber will start paying and treating people better. This is only newsworthy because Uber by its nature of having all independent contractors with a very obvious 'market' linking drivers to passengers. Makes this clear. It becomes very starkly clear the value of the driver and how much a human is worth. And that Uber can tweak their algorithms to minimize how much drivers are paid, thus providing a 'market' price for humans. Uber isn't special, it is just this human value is starkly on display.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago
LOL I would like more feedback. Am I being downvoted by 'Capitalist's', because it sounds like I'm anti-free market? When really, I'm just outlining what a market is, how things are? Or Am I being downvoted by 'Socialist', because it sounds like I'm advocating that Capitalisms is the natural order and humans are commodities, and is just how things are? It is very hard to tell what line is being crossed.
gruez 2y ago
>Like it or not, in the current US Capitalist's Environment (as opposed to some mythical earlier time when corporations were supposed to have some social responsibility), in this current environment, Humans are a Commodity. Is that supposed to be bad? "Commodity" just means something that could be bought and sold. Is it bad that I can buy people's time, or that I can sell my time? Was it better in communism where you couldn't buy or sell labor because it was all controlled by the state, and you still had to work? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_parasitism_(offense) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_parasitism_(offense)
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  I don't think I mentioned communism anywhere, even once. Or made any argument supporting it. I simply explained what a market is. I guess even not having the correct 'stringent tone' in favor of capitalism can make you a communist now. It is super hard to tell, not the first time I've simply explained a free market and been called a communist. It's almost like you have to express cult like warship for the 'idea' of a free market or you are communist. "buy people's time" Sounds so benign, but from the thread, I think it was pretty clear that we aren't just talking time. Some of the other examples used are really about "people so desperate they would do anything", which is also as you say not "bad", lives are "just something that could be bought and sold". Again, I'm not saying anything in favor of communism. I'm just outlining a market. Companies are people right? Time is money, life is time. Desperate times call for desperate measures, all's fair, and on and on. Lets not be all pro-free-market, then clutch our pearls when it leads to some questionable choices.

cs702 2y ago

Uber and Lyft underpriced their car service for years and years, killing off a lot traditional competition, i.e., independent taxi and limo companies. Now, both Uber and Lyft seek to be profitable... so they are squeezing every possible penny out of riders and drivers. If it looks, smells, and tastes like a Doo-Oh-Poh-Lee, it probably is one.

rpbiwer2 2y ago

I feel like I often hear these kinds of stories about Uber, but rarely about Lyft. Is Lyft actually better, or are they just more under the radar?

crazygringo 2y ago

First of all, this is partially the result of clearly terrible lawmaking: > In emails to drivers, Uber and Lyft have blamed each other — and the commission — for lockouts. In its minimum-pay formula, the TLC calculates non-passenger time as an industry average. When Lyft drivers aren’t as busy, for example, Uber has to increase driver pay because non-passenger time is higher on average. “The city’s rule bizarrely holds Uber responsible for Lyft’s failures,” said Uber spokesperson Freddi Goldstein. “With Lyft struggling to keep drivers busy, we don’t have other options.” But secondly, genuinely what other outcome would the lawmakers have expected? Previously, drivers could drive whenever they wanted, and they'd make more money in periods of higher unmet demand, which would lead to more drivers on the road during times of peak demand (good), and then drivers could decide for themselves whether it was worth it to drive in times of slow demand -- even if this resulted in less than minimum wage. Now, if there's a requirement that all drivers must make minimum wage, then during times of low demand, Uber/Lyft/etc. are forced to simply boot off a bunch of drivers so that there are enough fares left for the remaining drivers so they will be able to make minimum wage. And there's no obvious "fair" way to do that. You can't do it with pricing like before (since that's been made illegal), so it's necessarily going to be some kind of random lottery. And since demand fluctuates in ways that aren't always predictable (like rain), you can't really plan/schedule in advance. So drivers just get randomly deactivated right now -- instead of making less than minimum wage, they make nothing. I just don't see another way -- once a period of peak demand ends (like after morning rush hour), some drivers are going to have to be booted off if you want to maintain minimum wage. Don't blame Uber. I don't see how the law could have resulted in any other outcome.

mrgoldenbrown 2y ago
>during times of low demand, Uber/Lyft/etc. are forced to simply boot off a bunch of drivers so that there are enough fares left for the remaining drivers so they will be able to make minimum wage. You are claiming a false binary. They could hire drivers as employees. Or work together as an industry to make things work out, the same way they cooperate to oppose any legislation that threatens profits or promises worker rights.
- 2y ago