7 ms·

Uber, Lyft drivers in Massachusetts form first US ride-share union

296 points by onemoresoop 5mo ago

standardUser 5mo ago
The end of driving as a profession is going to hit the economy hard. Teamsters may have the organizational strength and political influence to protect themselves. But they only represent ~20% of US truck drivers and none of the other ~3 million people who drive for a living in this country. I don't see either American labor or American government being anywhere near strong enough or capable enough to facilitate a soft landing.
- toomuchtodo 5mo ago
  Society is fragile and operates in tension, a shared delusion like a currency. If workers burn down every autonomous truck on the road, there simply is not enough law enforcement to prevent them from doing so. There are only 1 million US soliders on US soil [1], there are 100 million workers. If they can't solve cargo theft incurring ~$35B/year in losses, how would they solve this? There are millions of trucks on US roads at any one time. > I don't see either American labor or American government being anywhere near strong enough or capable enough to facilitate a soft landing. Certainly not yet, but a resolution will present itself. The quality of which is to be determined of course. (not advocating either way, simply enumerating the risk model; I am privileged that my day job is to get paid to think like a threat actor across various verticals and model accordingly) [1] https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-troops-are-in-the-us-military/country/united-states/ https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-troops-are-in-the-us-m...
  - jedberg 5mo ago
    This is of course a dangerous suggestion, but also, never in the history of the world has the destruction of a technology that was replacing workers ever turned out well for the workers. At best it briefly delayed adoption.
    - toomuchtodo 5mo ago
      When has it worked out for workers? Genuine question. If its not offshoring manufacturing (China before, South East Asia today) and services (India primarily), its importing labor to depress wages and keep workers in economic peril (there are approximately 720,000 to 750,000 foreign-born truck drivers in the United States, representing about 18% to 20% of the total commercial driving workforce, as of this comment) to encourage compliance with the status quo [1] [2]. If you work with workers so that they will have a safe landing through a just transition, such that longshoreman experienced when the cargo container revolutionized shipping [3] [4], you might get worker buy in. If you say you will with no evidence you will follow through, you will not get buy in, and whatever is the downstream impact of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of workers becoming redundant rapidly without a safety net. Despite hope not being a strategy, as an observer, I hope that policymakers make a choice that leads to a net favorable outcome. If they do not, that is a choice. [1] Is long-haul trucking really facing a driver shortage? - https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/11/20/is-long-haul-trucking-really-facing-a-driver-shortage https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/11/20/is-long-haul-tr... - November 20th, 2024 [2] Impacts of Alternative Compensation Methods on Truck Driver Retention and Safety Performance - https://www.nationalacademies.org/projects/TRB-CAAS-22-01 https://www.nationalacademies.org/projects/TRB-CAAS-22-01 - 2024 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_(Levinson_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_(Levinson_book) [4] Arthur Donovan (1999) Longshoremen and mechanization, Journal for Maritime Research, 1:1, 66-75, DOI: 10.1080/21533369.1999.9668300 https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.1999.9668300 https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.1999.9668300
  - josefritzishere 5mo ago
    That's a great allegory.
  - Rekindle8090 5mo ago
    [dead]
  - soperj 5mo ago
    > If workers burn down every autonomous truck on the road I don't think they need to burn them down, punctured tires would probably be enough.
    - toomuchtodo 5mo ago
      Laziness on my part, my apologies, pick your system vulnerability to your preferences. Physical disablement, some flavor of cyber RCE, sensor spoofing or blinding, etc. Could be as easy as slowing in front of the vehicle to force it to a stop. Risk Assessment and Threat Modeling for safe autonomous driving technology - https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02231 https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02231 | https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2505.02231 https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2505.02231 Autonomous Vehicle Security: A Deep Dive into Threat Modeling - https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.15348 https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.15348 | https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.15348 https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.15348
  - pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago
    That is possible, but unfortunately I think more realistic scenario is that instead of raising up and losing their chains, the masses will get brainwashed by algorithms and end up convinced it is the minorities fault or something. The future, boot, face, forever, etc.
- bayarearefugee 5mo ago
  > The end of driving as a profession is going to hit the economy hard. They should just learn to code! /s > I don't see either American labor or American government being anywhere near strong enough or capable enough to facilitate a soft landing. More seriously, I agree with this, but the problems are going to extend way beyond just transportation workers. These are problems we could theoretically find solutions for, but we're headed into it at warp speed with an already absolutely broken political system and massive levels of wealth inequality. I find it far more likely that the solution to this all ends up being chaos and bloodshed rather than properly managed preventive policy changes.
- micromacrofoot 5mo ago
  well fortunately the timing of the driverless future will seemingly align with figuring out nuclear fusion
  - pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago
    If humanity actually put resources into fusion, I'm sure we would have already have it. But humanity's resources are controlled by few, and they want more exploitation, enshitification and ads, not abundant energy.
    - dmitrygr 5mo ago
      Yup, it is the rich who are hoarding the secrets of avoiding neutron embrittlement. And we'll never tell you what they are.
      - pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago
        I'm sure it would be much easier to solve with extra $10 trillion a year, which is pocket money compared to what goes into adtech, sloptech, attacking Iran and similar endeavors.
    - micromacrofoot 5mo ago
      the joke is that we've been saying fusion is just around the corner for more than 50 years, self-driving cars have been just around the corner for 10... so far
- VanTheBrand 5mo ago
  An under appreciated part of a truckers job is being in the truck so someone doesn’t rob it.
  - DonsDiscountGas 5mo ago
    A fully self driving truck won't need to stop much so I'm not sure this is relevant
devindotcom 5mo ago
Good for them. These companies appear exploitative and rent-seeking far beyond what the infrastructure they provide suggests is reasonable. If you're interested, next time you take a car, ask the driver what their end is - you may be surprised how little of the fare they actually take home. That share will only decrease unless they all get on one side of a table.
- czhu12 5mo ago
  it’s very confusing why uber makes so little profit given hire big their cut of every ride seemingly is.
  - colechristensen 5mo ago
    They would make plenty of money if they went in to maintenance mode and just kept the lights on development-wise instead of pouring billions into R&D each year. There's probably a big opportunity in the startup world for building businesses that have an end goal. Like a TV show that has a whole story to tell and then stops... a business that has an entire development plan which finishes and at the end you have a stable business that stops adding features, cuts development costs to maintenance, and just exists. Like I don't need my taxi app to change, we're good, you can just be done making new stuff.
    - mlsu 5mo ago
      There's even more money to be made selling a false promise of infinite growth, dumping your bags, and riding off into the sunset.
    - justaman123 5mo ago
      I think it's going to take a act of Congress to make this happen. We could literally legislate our way out of enshitification but where's the huge amount of money in that?
      - bee_rider 5mo ago
missedthecue 5mo ago
Given that Uber isn't their W-2 employer, what happens if they just ignores them? My guess is Uber invites them to walk off the job.
- dangus 5mo ago
  Yeah, and that would disrupt Uber badly in the area. In the article it mentions that this is a union of 70,000 independent contractors. I imagine that it would be very bad for Uber if they all decided not to drive simultaneously. With collective organization, the union has a better chance to coordinate strikes and other collective action, as well as bargain for pay collectively rather than in a one to many relationship.
  - zamadatix 5mo ago
    I wonder how much Uber/Lyft actually loses when nobody drives vs loses opportunity. A big part of union negotiating strength is how large the costs of doing nothing (like leases or contract delivery terms) is but I honestly have no clue how that works for Uber/Lyft (and it may vary a lot by region depending what Uber/Lyft are required to do in each area).
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
  - Vaslo 5mo ago
    Not sure I agree. They have plenty of cash and can wait it out. The drivers don't. I personally don't care about this as long as the costs aren't passed on to me.
  - AlexandrB 5mo ago
    > Yeah, and that would disrupt Uber badly in the area. So what? Uber operates all over the world, losing some revenue (maybe not even profit) in one region is a loss they can eat. A Taxi company couldn't eat this kind of loss and would be forced to negotiate. Uber though? They can tough it out if it's advantageous to them. This is the inevitable result of replacing local taxi monopolies or cartels with a multinational "tech" duopoly.
NickC25 5mo ago
Good on 'em, but autonomous cars are on their way and it might displace the union. In my city, Zoox are already rolling out driverless taxi services, and the vehicles they are using are completely autonomous.
- xp84 5mo ago
  It will likely play out exactly like California’s disastrous special $20/hr fast food minimum wage[1]: a near immediate reduction in the number of people employed. They replaced a couple of $20/hr workers that were present taking orders with $3000 kiosks that run for $0.10/hour of electricity. And chains also closed locations whose fiscal viability were already close to the line, since “the line” jumped. I don’t really blame the drivers for trying, I just think it’s probably not a viable long-term career, unfortunately. [1] except of course if you’re Panera, coincidentally owned by a Newsom friend/donor. Good ol’ Bake-bread-on-premises exception!
  - roboror 5mo ago
    The fast-food worker being replaced by a kiosk is inevitable and not limited to California, but even the kiosk is mostly transitory and destined to be largely replaced by a phone app.
  - VanTheBrand 5mo ago
    Except that’s not how it played out at all! Fast Food employment did not go down but wages did go up 11%. Prices of food went up 1.5%, which covered half the wage increase, and the employers ate (pun intended) the other half of the cost. Here is the study by UC Berkeley from this April https://irle.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Effects-of-a-20-Minimum-Wage-Evidence-from-Granular-Data-on-Wages-Employment-and-Prices-April-1-2026.pdf https://irle.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Effects...
    - opo 5mo ago
      Other papers have found both employment losses and more significant price increases. A discussion of the topic was in the Ask Economics subreddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1smjx29/was_californias_20_dollar_minimum_wage_hike/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1smjx29/was_c...
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
e63f67dd-065b 5mo ago
The original impetus was more about banning robotaxis in Boston/MA than it is about the actual bargaining, from what I've heard. Just as the teamsters tried to ban cars to protect horse carriage drivers (that's what teamsters were, that's why they're called teamsters), they're back to ban the next mode of transportation. If you were at any of the city council meetings where this topic was brought up it was a circus show with people repeating 'boston is a union town' and grilling waymo execs.
- beastman82 5mo ago
  Well yeah they're presenting an irrational argument to benefit the few.
  - palmotea 5mo ago
    > Well yeah they're presenting an irrational argument to benefit the few. The only few that should benefit are the owners. If a few workers try to benefit, they're greedy bastards who would be pounded down.
    - whimsicalism 5mo ago
      I would also be opposed to laws making it illegal for anyone to compete with the owners.
    - dominotw 5mo ago
      ok hope you stick to this stance when ai comes for your job
      - bigfishrunning 5mo ago
        i think your sarcasm detector might be faulty
        dominotw 5mo ago
        yea have to send it to the shop to get it checked out
yogthos 5mo ago
amazing news, good for them
satvikpendem 5mo ago
I'm going to shout out Empower, it's a service like Uber that charges a flat fee to the driver every month, around 50 bucks, without taking any percentage fees, meaning both the riders save much more and drivers make much more, especially if they drive a lot. Their rationale is that it should be more like hiring a contractor for your house, a platform wouldn't get a cut of the cost of your grass cutter so why should drivers be any different? So far I haven't had any issues, although I did hear of some problems and controversies they have.
- aitchnyu 5mo ago
  Namma Yatri is doing the same in India. Flat fee and your fare instantly goes to the drivers wallet. Previously, drivers at late night ask me to cancel the ride and hand over cash so they can buy petrol, Uber takes a long time to settle. Seems Uber responded to compete with them and maybe increased subsidy for riders.
  - satvikpendem 5mo ago
    I always wonder what Uber is doing with all that money. I know a former employee talked about the vast number of screens it has [0] but still, if these sorts of companies can beat them then I'm not sure what the Uber value proposition is, especially as it gets more expensive. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346
nerdjon 5mo ago
No doubt good for them, but I am curious how this is realistically going to work. The barrier of entry to get new non-union drivers for Lyft and Uber is very low. If a strike does happen I can't imagine it would be hard for them to fairly quickly get new drivers, especially with the possibility of higher fairs due to high demand while it is sorted out. I have to imagine they would be able to get drivers far faster than most other situations with strikes. I wonder if Uber and Lyft would even try to partner with gocurb or another app to funnel riders directly to taxies. Not saying a union is a bad thing, I just wonder in this particular case how well it is realistically going to work out. Guess we will see.
- ozgrakkurt 5mo ago
  What are you basing these guesses on? Workforce is pretty difficult to find on basically anything as far as I know. You might have people that want to drive taxis but they would still have to get used to the streets, how the app works etc. etc. which can significantly degrade service quality.
  - nerdjon 5mo ago
    The number of people with cars that might be willing to do some side work for some extra money? It isn't like other jobs that have resumes and (possibly) long interview processes. From what I can find we are talking a few days without talking to anyone and you are driving. Throw in Uber and Lyft doing an advertising campaign with incentives to start driving, I don't see any reason they could not have a potential large amount of drivers fairly quickly. Maybe it won't be at ideal hours, maybe it will still be hit or miss, but there are a lot of drivers out there. Just due to the very nature of this being gig work. All they really need to just ignore the union's demands is to be able to sign up enough drivers to out last the members not making money. Getting used to driving the streets and everything is up to the drivers, not uber or lyft. I am just reluctant to think it will actually work and the drivers won't cave. Trying to pass laws would be a more concrete fix.
  - IAmBroom 5mo ago
    For most cities, "get used to the streets" means "use GPS". They could be earning money the same day they sign up. That puts the barrier to entry on the same level as grocery store workers. Granted, those too can successfully unionize; I agree that such strikes are only toothless when unemployment is high.
jedberg 5mo ago
Unions are great when they are fighting for worker's rights by demanding things like businesses sharing their profits with the workers who make it for them, more vacation time, required investments in safety, and protecting workers from getting fired for having the wrong skin color. But when they get into the business of slowing down technology adoption to protect workers, that's when they get into the territory of giving unions a bad name. Getting together to lobby the government to make systemic changes to help displaced workers would be great, but it seems in this case they are trying to get government to just ban technology that replaces them.
- jedimastert 5mo ago
  > But when they get into the business of slowing down technology adoption to protect workers, that's when they get into the territory of giving unions a bad name. I would consider the emputus more on companies to not roll out new technology in a way that harms workers.
  - HDThoreaun 5mo ago
    Why is it waymo's problem to help uber drivers?
  - jmye 5mo ago
    > I would consider the emputus more on companies to not roll out new technology in a way that harms workers. *Impetus, but also, why? Why is it a company's role to figure out how to soft land a technological advance that might cost you your job?
- shimman 5mo ago
  Why shouldn't workers also lobby the government to help their material needs? Are only corporations entitled to welfare now? There's also little benefit in discussing how "useful" this technology actually is if all the benefits are continually being captured by 1% of the population.
  - hackeraccount 5mo ago
tomaspiaggio12 5mo ago
i'm so ready for fully self driving to take over
- ronnier 5mo ago
  It's close and it will happen. In my Tesla it already drives itself nearly 100% of the time through city streets, highways, rush hour traffic, complex situations (hardware 4 Teslas are amazing). I also have a Toyota truck and it feels like such a downgrade to drive without self driving anymore. It's only a matter of time before Tesla and others perfect self driving (as Waymo nearly has done) and we no longer have human driven taxis/ubers/lyfts and regular drivers are also on self driving. It will save time, lives and reduce road rage.
  - tapoxi 5mo ago
    Are you sleeping in the back while the Tesla drives? Until you feel comfortable doing so, its stuck in the eternal 90%.
    - qwerpy 5mo ago
      It doesn’t have to be completely unsupervised for the driver to realize huge improvements in quality of life. I don’t even notice when people drive slow or cut me off. I’m just relaxing, fiddling with the music or talking to my family. And managing two toddlers is a lot easier when my brain doesn’t have to run a constant background job. I do hope that unsupervised comes soon though. The tech is there, or at least far enough that I consider it better than my own driving. The hurdle is regulatory now.
      - nradov 5mo ago
        If you're distracted and not actively monitoring an SAE Level 2 autonomous system then you're a hazard to yourself and others. Don't do that. You need to be ready to actively intervene with zero advance notice.
        5mo ago
rootsudo 5mo ago
Good. All I can say is good. I wonder if Illinois or California would be next.
- qwerpy 5mo ago
  From an admittedly selfish point of view, I also don't mind this. I don't use rideshare anymore. I use my self-driving cars when I'm at home, use private vans to go to the airport, or rent a self-driving car when I'm traveling. Uber/Lyft were becoming too expensive for the low quality of service and I'd rather just pay for better quality at this point. They also drive terribly and make the road less safe for other drivers and pedestrians.
cs702 5mo ago
Over the past two years, I have found Uber and Lyft rides getting more expensive than taxis in several large US cities, including Boston, Chicago, NY, and LA. Taxis are now 10-50% cheaper in my experience. When I do take Uber and Lyft rides, I ask the drivers how much they're getting paid, and the amounts they tell me are often 30% to 60% less than what I paid, which is a bit shocking to me. At some point, Uber and Lyft stopped being service providers that charged riders a fee for value provided. They have become market makers that squeeze as much trading profit as possible by arbitraging the prices riders are willing to pay and the rates drivers are willing to accept. I imagine they are capturing most of the value in each ride today. It's perfectly legal, but let's call what it is. I'm not surprised about the ride-share driver union.
- pessimizer 5mo ago
  > At some point, Uber and Lyft stopped being service providers that charged riders a fee for value provided. They were only ever this for about 30 seconds between when they were dumping investor cash to sell dollars for 75¢, and when they realized finally that no one even knew what a taxi was anymore, or how to find one. What literally every "cynic" said would happen.
ireflect 5mo ago
[dead]
arjie 5mo ago
It will be interesting to see what happens. One thing I really like about the US federal system is how each jurisdiction applies massive economic interventions. We get to run many experiments and see what happens. I recall that I was curious about the Seattle driver minimum wage law and the results were so interesting to me[0]: > We find that the minimum pay law raised delivery pay per task, though the increases in base pay per task were partially offset by a substantial reduction in average tips, a major component of delivery pay. At the same time, the policy led to a reduction in the number of tasks completed by highly attached incumbent drivers (but not an increase in exit from delivery work), completely offsetting increased pay per task and leading to zero effect on monthly earnings. We find evidence that drivers experienced more unpaid idle time and longer distances driven between tasks, but find no evidence that drivers reduced their total time working on delivery apps and only limited evidence of switching from delivery to ride-hailing work. Using a simple model of the labor market for platform delivery drivers, we show that our evidence is consistent with free entry of drivers into the delivery market driving down the task-finding rate until expected earnings return to their pre-reform level. These findings highlight the challenges of raising pay in spot markets for tasks where there is free entry of workers. 0: https://www.nber.org/papers/w34545 https://www.nber.org/papers/w34545
- Ferret7446 5mo ago
  Economics 101 happens. I don't think we need yet another example of the obvious thing happening. I have no idea why people keep talking about raising pay as if they were in a video game where resources just spawn out of thin air
  - tpxl 5mo ago
    Resources have a way of spawning for CEOs, why not for minimum wage workers?
    - akramachamarei 5mo ago
      Do they? It's an interesting question whether resources can be spawned by fiat. I think the only entity capable of doing so is the government, i.e. when it prints money.
nickvec 5mo ago
It's about time -- I hope rideshare drivers unionize in California as well. A UC Berkeley Labor Center study (2024) found rideshare drivers take home $7.12 per hour in median net hourly earnings before tips, which is less than half of California's $16 minimum wage at the time. https://inequality.org/article/exposing-the-rideshare-industrys-misleading-wage-claims/ https://inequality.org/article/exposing-the-rideshare-indust...
- 1970-01-01 5mo ago
  Has nothing to do with what time it is. It was the voters voting. CA could do the exact same thing. Waiting for it to happen is a great way for it to never happen.
  - nickvec 5mo ago
    I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said “it’s about time.” It’s a saying that indicates that something is long overdue. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/it%27s%20about%20time https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/it%27s%20about%20...
BrandoElFollito 5mo ago
I am not sure how unions work in the US. In Europe, generally speaking, you have unions that are formed within the company, usually as a representative of a national one (but you can also have local ones). They get elected to represent the employees and whatever they bargain is for all employees. Maybe 1% of employees are actually part of a union. In the US it seems that you have to be a member of a union to get what they bargain? And they companies can block the creation of a union?
- ProllyInfamous 5mo ago
  My IBEW (electricians' union) experience was regional, tied to where I lived; private companies can then choose whether to be a union shop, or not. Certain contracts do or do not require using a union shop, but Bacon Act makes it so that tradesmen don't necessarily have to be IBEW members to receive the same wages, but most choose Union. ---- My thought proposition, in conversation, is usually something along the lines of: why would companies spend so much money campaigning against union organizers if it didn't have a multi-billion dollar return (i.e. more).
  - BrandoElFollito 5mo ago
    Thank you for the information. Over here this is completely regulated and companies do not have any choice in which unions are formed and they cannot make any attemptes to prevent unions. They also have to indirectly subidiase them :) Everyday employees usually learn about unions though leflets they provide from tim to time, with a mot more information around elections for the company representative body. One an agreement is in place with the company (which must be above whatthe law requires) then it is binding for everyone, unionized or not.
    - ProllyInfamous 5mo ago
      To be clear: US employees may attempt to organize at any company, but most "union shops" have chosen to use IBEW labor, as it gives them access to larger commercial/govt/industrial projects (depending upon region/jurisdiction). Non-union shops will typically spend significant funds dissuading "organizing" among the employees, but there are many rules which technically prevent certain actions. It is still commonly misunderstood that US employees cannot legally discuss their wage/compensation, when there is Federal Law which specifically allows discussion$.

296 points by onemoresoop 5mo ago

The end of driving as a profession is going to hit the economy hard. Teamsters may have the organizational strength and political influence to protect themselves. But they only represent ~20% of US truck drivers and none of the other ~3 million people who drive for a living in this country. I don't see either American labor or American government being anywhere near strong enough or capable enough to facilitate a soft landing.

toomuchtodo 5mo ago
Society is fragile and operates in tension, a shared delusion like a currency. If workers burn down every autonomous truck on the road, there simply is not enough law enforcement to prevent them from doing so. There are only 1 million US soliders on US soil [1], there are 100 million workers. If they can't solve cargo theft incurring ~$35B/year in losses, how would they solve this? There are millions of trucks on US roads at any one time. > I don't see either American labor or American government being anywhere near strong enough or capable enough to facilitate a soft landing. Certainly not yet, but a resolution will present itself. The quality of which is to be determined of course. (not advocating either way, simply enumerating the risk model; I am privileged that my day job is to get paid to think like a threat actor across various verticals and model accordingly) [1] https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-troops-are-in-the-us-military/country/united-states/ https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-troops-are-in-the-us-m...
- jedberg 5mo ago
  This is of course a dangerous suggestion, but also, never in the history of the world has the destruction of a technology that was replacing workers ever turned out well for the workers. At best it briefly delayed adoption.
  - toomuchtodo 5mo ago
    When has it worked out for workers? Genuine question. If its not offshoring manufacturing (China before, South East Asia today) and services (India primarily), its importing labor to depress wages and keep workers in economic peril (there are approximately 720,000 to 750,000 foreign-born truck drivers in the United States, representing about 18% to 20% of the total commercial driving workforce, as of this comment) to encourage compliance with the status quo [1] [2]. If you work with workers so that they will have a safe landing through a just transition, such that longshoreman experienced when the cargo container revolutionized shipping [3] [4], you might get worker buy in. If you say you will with no evidence you will follow through, you will not get buy in, and whatever is the downstream impact of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of workers becoming redundant rapidly without a safety net. Despite hope not being a strategy, as an observer, I hope that policymakers make a choice that leads to a net favorable outcome. If they do not, that is a choice. [1] Is long-haul trucking really facing a driver shortage? - https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/11/20/is-long-haul-trucking-really-facing-a-driver-shortage https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/11/20/is-long-haul-tr... - November 20th, 2024 [2] Impacts of Alternative Compensation Methods on Truck Driver Retention and Safety Performance - https://www.nationalacademies.org/projects/TRB-CAAS-22-01 https://www.nationalacademies.org/projects/TRB-CAAS-22-01 - 2024 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_(Levinson_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_(Levinson_book) [4] Arthur Donovan (1999) Longshoremen and mechanization, Journal for Maritime Research, 1:1, 66-75, DOI: 10.1080/21533369.1999.9668300 https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.1999.9668300 https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.1999.9668300
- josefritzishere 5mo ago
  That's a great allegory.
- Rekindle8090 5mo ago
  [dead]
- soperj 5mo ago
  > If workers burn down every autonomous truck on the road I don't think they need to burn them down, punctured tires would probably be enough.
  - toomuchtodo 5mo ago
    Laziness on my part, my apologies, pick your system vulnerability to your preferences. Physical disablement, some flavor of cyber RCE, sensor spoofing or blinding, etc. Could be as easy as slowing in front of the vehicle to force it to a stop. Risk Assessment and Threat Modeling for safe autonomous driving technology - https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02231 https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02231 | https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2505.02231 https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2505.02231 Autonomous Vehicle Security: A Deep Dive into Threat Modeling - https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.15348 https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.15348 | https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.15348 https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.15348
- pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago
  That is possible, but unfortunately I think more realistic scenario is that instead of raising up and losing their chains, the masses will get brainwashed by algorithms and end up convinced it is the minorities fault or something. The future, boot, face, forever, etc.
bayarearefugee 5mo ago
> The end of driving as a profession is going to hit the economy hard. They should just learn to code! /s > I don't see either American labor or American government being anywhere near strong enough or capable enough to facilitate a soft landing. More seriously, I agree with this, but the problems are going to extend way beyond just transportation workers. These are problems we could theoretically find solutions for, but we're headed into it at warp speed with an already absolutely broken political system and massive levels of wealth inequality. I find it far more likely that the solution to this all ends up being chaos and bloodshed rather than properly managed preventive policy changes.
micromacrofoot 5mo ago
well fortunately the timing of the driverless future will seemingly align with figuring out nuclear fusion
- pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago
  If humanity actually put resources into fusion, I'm sure we would have already have it. But humanity's resources are controlled by few, and they want more exploitation, enshitification and ads, not abundant energy.
  - dmitrygr 5mo ago
    Yup, it is the rich who are hoarding the secrets of avoiding neutron embrittlement. And we'll never tell you what they are.
    - pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago
      I'm sure it would be much easier to solve with extra $10 trillion a year, which is pocket money compared to what goes into adtech, sloptech, attacking Iran and similar endeavors.
  - micromacrofoot 5mo ago
    the joke is that we've been saying fusion is just around the corner for more than 50 years, self-driving cars have been just around the corner for 10... so far
VanTheBrand 5mo ago
An under appreciated part of a truckers job is being in the truck so someone doesn’t rob it.
- DonsDiscountGas 5mo ago
  A fully self driving truck won't need to stop much so I'm not sure this is relevant

devindotcom 5mo ago

Good for them. These companies appear exploitative and rent-seeking far beyond what the infrastructure they provide suggests is reasonable. If you're interested, next time you take a car, ask the driver what their end is - you may be surprised how little of the fare they actually take home. That share will only decrease unless they all get on one side of a table.

czhu12 5mo ago
it’s very confusing why uber makes so little profit given hire big their cut of every ride seemingly is.
- colechristensen 5mo ago
  They would make plenty of money if they went in to maintenance mode and just kept the lights on development-wise instead of pouring billions into R&D each year. There's probably a big opportunity in the startup world for building businesses that have an end goal. Like a TV show that has a whole story to tell and then stops... a business that has an entire development plan which finishes and at the end you have a stable business that stops adding features, cuts development costs to maintenance, and just exists. Like I don't need my taxi app to change, we're good, you can just be done making new stuff.
  - mlsu 5mo ago
    There's even more money to be made selling a false promise of infinite growth, dumping your bags, and riding off into the sunset.
  - justaman123 5mo ago
    I think it's going to take a act of Congress to make this happen. We could literally legislate our way out of enshitification but where's the huge amount of money in that?
    - bee_rider 5mo ago

missedthecue 5mo ago

Given that Uber isn't their W-2 employer, what happens if they just ignores them? My guess is Uber invites them to walk off the job.

dangus 5mo ago
Yeah, and that would disrupt Uber badly in the area. In the article it mentions that this is a union of 70,000 independent contractors. I imagine that it would be very bad for Uber if they all decided not to drive simultaneously. With collective organization, the union has a better chance to coordinate strikes and other collective action, as well as bargain for pay collectively rather than in a one to many relationship.
- zamadatix 5mo ago
  I wonder how much Uber/Lyft actually loses when nobody drives vs loses opportunity. A big part of union negotiating strength is how large the costs of doing nothing (like leases or contract delivery terms) is but I honestly have no clue how that works for Uber/Lyft (and it may vary a lot by region depending what Uber/Lyft are required to do in each area).
  - deleted 5mo ago
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- Vaslo 5mo ago
  Not sure I agree. They have plenty of cash and can wait it out. The drivers don't. I personally don't care about this as long as the costs aren't passed on to me.
- AlexandrB 5mo ago
  > Yeah, and that would disrupt Uber badly in the area. So what? Uber operates all over the world, losing some revenue (maybe not even profit) in one region is a loss they can eat. A Taxi company couldn't eat this kind of loss and would be forced to negotiate. Uber though? They can tough it out if it's advantageous to them. This is the inevitable result of replacing local taxi monopolies or cartels with a multinational "tech" duopoly.

NickC25 5mo ago

Good on 'em, but autonomous cars are on their way and it might displace the union. In my city, Zoox are already rolling out driverless taxi services, and the vehicles they are using are completely autonomous.

xp84 5mo ago
It will likely play out exactly like California’s disastrous special $20/hr fast food minimum wage[1]: a near immediate reduction in the number of people employed. They replaced a couple of $20/hr workers that were present taking orders with $3000 kiosks that run for $0.10/hour of electricity. And chains also closed locations whose fiscal viability were already close to the line, since “the line” jumped. I don’t really blame the drivers for trying, I just think it’s probably not a viable long-term career, unfortunately. [1] except of course if you’re Panera, coincidentally owned by a Newsom friend/donor. Good ol’ Bake-bread-on-premises exception!
- roboror 5mo ago
  The fast-food worker being replaced by a kiosk is inevitable and not limited to California, but even the kiosk is mostly transitory and destined to be largely replaced by a phone app.
- VanTheBrand 5mo ago
  Except that’s not how it played out at all! Fast Food employment did not go down but wages did go up 11%. Prices of food went up 1.5%, which covered half the wage increase, and the employers ate (pun intended) the other half of the cost. Here is the study by UC Berkeley from this April https://irle.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Effects-of-a-20-Minimum-Wage-Evidence-from-Granular-Data-on-Wages-Employment-and-Prices-April-1-2026.pdf https://irle.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Effects...
  - opo 5mo ago
    Other papers have found both employment losses and more significant price increases. A discussion of the topic was in the Ask Economics subreddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1smjx29/was_californias_20_dollar_minimum_wage_hike/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1smjx29/was_c...

deleted 5mo ago

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e63f67dd-065b 5mo ago

The original impetus was more about banning robotaxis in Boston/MA than it is about the actual bargaining, from what I've heard. Just as the teamsters tried to ban cars to protect horse carriage drivers (that's what teamsters were, that's why they're called teamsters), they're back to ban the next mode of transportation. If you were at any of the city council meetings where this topic was brought up it was a circus show with people repeating 'boston is a union town' and grilling waymo execs.

beastman82 5mo ago
Well yeah they're presenting an irrational argument to benefit the few.
- palmotea 5mo ago
  > Well yeah they're presenting an irrational argument to benefit the few. The only few that should benefit are the owners. If a few workers try to benefit, they're greedy bastards who would be pounded down.
  - whimsicalism 5mo ago
    I would also be opposed to laws making it illegal for anyone to compete with the owners.
  - dominotw 5mo ago
    ok hope you stick to this stance when ai comes for your job
    - bigfishrunning 5mo ago
      i think your sarcasm detector might be faulty
      - dominotw 5mo ago
        yea have to send it to the shop to get it checked out

yogthos 5mo ago

amazing news, good for them

satvikpendem 5mo ago

I'm going to shout out Empower, it's a service like Uber that charges a flat fee to the driver every month, around 50 bucks, without taking any percentage fees, meaning both the riders save much more and drivers make much more, especially if they drive a lot. Their rationale is that it should be more like hiring a contractor for your house, a platform wouldn't get a cut of the cost of your grass cutter so why should drivers be any different? So far I haven't had any issues, although I did hear of some problems and controversies they have.

aitchnyu 5mo ago
Namma Yatri is doing the same in India. Flat fee and your fare instantly goes to the drivers wallet. Previously, drivers at late night ask me to cancel the ride and hand over cash so they can buy petrol, Uber takes a long time to settle. Seems Uber responded to compete with them and maybe increased subsidy for riders.
- satvikpendem 5mo ago
  I always wonder what Uber is doing with all that money. I know a former employee talked about the vast number of screens it has [0] but still, if these sorts of companies can beat them then I'm not sure what the Uber value proposition is, especially as it gets more expensive. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346

nerdjon 5mo ago

No doubt good for them, but I am curious how this is realistically going to work. The barrier of entry to get new non-union drivers for Lyft and Uber is very low. If a strike does happen I can't imagine it would be hard for them to fairly quickly get new drivers, especially with the possibility of higher fairs due to high demand while it is sorted out. I have to imagine they would be able to get drivers far faster than most other situations with strikes. I wonder if Uber and Lyft would even try to partner with gocurb or another app to funnel riders directly to taxies. Not saying a union is a bad thing, I just wonder in this particular case how well it is realistically going to work out. Guess we will see.

ozgrakkurt 5mo ago
What are you basing these guesses on? Workforce is pretty difficult to find on basically anything as far as I know. You might have people that want to drive taxis but they would still have to get used to the streets, how the app works etc. etc. which can significantly degrade service quality.
- nerdjon 5mo ago
  The number of people with cars that might be willing to do some side work for some extra money? It isn't like other jobs that have resumes and (possibly) long interview processes. From what I can find we are talking a few days without talking to anyone and you are driving. Throw in Uber and Lyft doing an advertising campaign with incentives to start driving, I don't see any reason they could not have a potential large amount of drivers fairly quickly. Maybe it won't be at ideal hours, maybe it will still be hit or miss, but there are a lot of drivers out there. Just due to the very nature of this being gig work. All they really need to just ignore the union's demands is to be able to sign up enough drivers to out last the members not making money. Getting used to driving the streets and everything is up to the drivers, not uber or lyft. I am just reluctant to think it will actually work and the drivers won't cave. Trying to pass laws would be a more concrete fix.
- IAmBroom 5mo ago
  For most cities, "get used to the streets" means "use GPS". They could be earning money the same day they sign up. That puts the barrier to entry on the same level as grocery store workers. Granted, those too can successfully unionize; I agree that such strikes are only toothless when unemployment is high.

jedberg 5mo ago

Unions are great when they are fighting for worker's rights by demanding things like businesses sharing their profits with the workers who make it for them, more vacation time, required investments in safety, and protecting workers from getting fired for having the wrong skin color. But when they get into the business of slowing down technology adoption to protect workers, that's when they get into the territory of giving unions a bad name. Getting together to lobby the government to make systemic changes to help displaced workers would be great, but it seems in this case they are trying to get government to just ban technology that replaces them.

jedimastert 5mo ago
> But when they get into the business of slowing down technology adoption to protect workers, that's when they get into the territory of giving unions a bad name. I would consider the emputus more on companies to not roll out new technology in a way that harms workers.
- HDThoreaun 5mo ago
  Why is it waymo's problem to help uber drivers?
- jmye 5mo ago
  > I would consider the emputus more on companies to not roll out new technology in a way that harms workers. *Impetus, but also, why? Why is it a company's role to figure out how to soft land a technological advance that might cost you your job?
shimman 5mo ago
Why shouldn't workers also lobby the government to help their material needs? Are only corporations entitled to welfare now? There's also little benefit in discussing how "useful" this technology actually is if all the benefits are continually being captured by 1% of the population.
- hackeraccount 5mo ago

tomaspiaggio12 5mo ago

i'm so ready for fully self driving to take over

ronnier 5mo ago
It's close and it will happen. In my Tesla it already drives itself nearly 100% of the time through city streets, highways, rush hour traffic, complex situations (hardware 4 Teslas are amazing). I also have a Toyota truck and it feels like such a downgrade to drive without self driving anymore. It's only a matter of time before Tesla and others perfect self driving (as Waymo nearly has done) and we no longer have human driven taxis/ubers/lyfts and regular drivers are also on self driving. It will save time, lives and reduce road rage.
- tapoxi 5mo ago
  Are you sleeping in the back while the Tesla drives? Until you feel comfortable doing so, its stuck in the eternal 90%.
  - qwerpy 5mo ago
    It doesn’t have to be completely unsupervised for the driver to realize huge improvements in quality of life. I don’t even notice when people drive slow or cut me off. I’m just relaxing, fiddling with the music or talking to my family. And managing two toddlers is a lot easier when my brain doesn’t have to run a constant background job. I do hope that unsupervised comes soon though. The tech is there, or at least far enough that I consider it better than my own driving. The hurdle is regulatory now.
    - nradov 5mo ago
      If you're distracted and not actively monitoring an SAE Level 2 autonomous system then you're a hazard to yourself and others. Don't do that. You need to be ready to actively intervene with zero advance notice.
      - 5mo ago

rootsudo 5mo ago

Good. All I can say is good. I wonder if Illinois or California would be next.

qwerpy 5mo ago
From an admittedly selfish point of view, I also don't mind this. I don't use rideshare anymore. I use my self-driving cars when I'm at home, use private vans to go to the airport, or rent a self-driving car when I'm traveling. Uber/Lyft were becoming too expensive for the low quality of service and I'd rather just pay for better quality at this point. They also drive terribly and make the road less safe for other drivers and pedestrians.

cs702 5mo ago

Over the past two years, I have found Uber and Lyft rides getting more expensive than taxis in several large US cities, including Boston, Chicago, NY, and LA. Taxis are now 10-50% cheaper in my experience. When I do take Uber and Lyft rides, I ask the drivers how much they're getting paid, and the amounts they tell me are often 30% to 60% less than what I paid, which is a bit shocking to me. At some point, Uber and Lyft stopped being service providers that charged riders a fee for value provided. They have become market makers that squeeze as much trading profit as possible by arbitraging the prices riders are willing to pay and the rates drivers are willing to accept. I imagine they are capturing most of the value in each ride today. It's perfectly legal, but let's call what it is. I'm not surprised about the ride-share driver union.

pessimizer 5mo ago
> At some point, Uber and Lyft stopped being service providers that charged riders a fee for value provided. They were only ever this for about 30 seconds between when they were dumping investor cash to sell dollars for 75¢, and when they realized finally that no one even knew what a taxi was anymore, or how to find one. What literally every "cynic" said would happen.

ireflect 5mo ago

[dead]

arjie 5mo ago

It will be interesting to see what happens. One thing I really like about the US federal system is how each jurisdiction applies massive economic interventions. We get to run many experiments and see what happens. I recall that I was curious about the Seattle driver minimum wage law and the results were so interesting to me[0]: > We find that the minimum pay law raised delivery pay per task, though the increases in base pay per task were partially offset by a substantial reduction in average tips, a major component of delivery pay. At the same time, the policy led to a reduction in the number of tasks completed by highly attached incumbent drivers (but not an increase in exit from delivery work), completely offsetting increased pay per task and leading to zero effect on monthly earnings. We find evidence that drivers experienced more unpaid idle time and longer distances driven between tasks, but find no evidence that drivers reduced their total time working on delivery apps and only limited evidence of switching from delivery to ride-hailing work. Using a simple model of the labor market for platform delivery drivers, we show that our evidence is consistent with free entry of drivers into the delivery market driving down the task-finding rate until expected earnings return to their pre-reform level. These findings highlight the challenges of raising pay in spot markets for tasks where there is free entry of workers. 0: https://www.nber.org/papers/w34545 https://www.nber.org/papers/w34545

Ferret7446 5mo ago
Economics 101 happens. I don't think we need yet another example of the obvious thing happening. I have no idea why people keep talking about raising pay as if they were in a video game where resources just spawn out of thin air
- tpxl 5mo ago
  Resources have a way of spawning for CEOs, why not for minimum wage workers?
  - akramachamarei 5mo ago
    Do they? It's an interesting question whether resources can be spawned by fiat. I think the only entity capable of doing so is the government, i.e. when it prints money.

nickvec 5mo ago

It's about time -- I hope rideshare drivers unionize in California as well. A UC Berkeley Labor Center study (2024) found rideshare drivers take home $7.12 per hour in median net hourly earnings before tips, which is less than half of California's $16 minimum wage at the time. https://inequality.org/article/exposing-the-rideshare-industrys-misleading-wage-claims/ https://inequality.org/article/exposing-the-rideshare-indust...

1970-01-01 5mo ago
Has nothing to do with what time it is. It was the voters voting. CA could do the exact same thing. Waiting for it to happen is a great way for it to never happen.
- nickvec 5mo ago
  I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said “it’s about time.” It’s a saying that indicates that something is long overdue. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/it%27s%20about%20time https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/it%27s%20about%20...

BrandoElFollito 5mo ago

I am not sure how unions work in the US. In Europe, generally speaking, you have unions that are formed within the company, usually as a representative of a national one (but you can also have local ones). They get elected to represent the employees and whatever they bargain is for all employees. Maybe 1% of employees are actually part of a union. In the US it seems that you have to be a member of a union to get what they bargain? And they companies can block the creation of a union?

ProllyInfamous 5mo ago
My IBEW (electricians' union) experience was regional, tied to where I lived; private companies can then choose whether to be a union shop, or not. Certain contracts do or do not require using a union shop, but Bacon Act makes it so that tradesmen don't necessarily have to be IBEW members to receive the same wages, but most choose Union. ---- My thought proposition, in conversation, is usually something along the lines of: why would companies spend so much money campaigning against union organizers if it didn't have a multi-billion dollar return (i.e. more).
- BrandoElFollito 5mo ago
  Thank you for the information. Over here this is completely regulated and companies do not have any choice in which unions are formed and they cannot make any attemptes to prevent unions. They also have to indirectly subidiase them :) Everyday employees usually learn about unions though leflets they provide from tim to time, with a mot more information around elections for the company representative body. One an agreement is in place with the company (which must be above whatthe law requires) then it is binding for everyone, unionized or not.
  - ProllyInfamous 5mo ago
    To be clear: US employees may attempt to organize at any company, but most "union shops" have chosen to use IBEW labor, as it gives them access to larger commercial/govt/industrial projects (depending upon region/jurisdiction). Non-union shops will typically spend significant funds dissuading "organizing" among the employees, but there are many rules which technically prevent certain actions. It is still commonly misunderstood that US employees cannot legally discuss their wage/compensation, when there is Federal Law which specifically allows discussion$.