When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the U.S.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-23/when-their-shifts-end-uber-drivers-set-up-camp-in-parking-lots-across-the-u-s

by JumpCrisscross • 10 years ago

108 127 10 years ago

bloomberg.com

pizzetta3• 9 years ago

I wonder if it would make sense in some cities to set-up "internet café" or capsule hotel-like accommodations[1]. Dense urban areas in other countries have these "overflow" spaces which diverged somewhat from their original design have come to serve either laborers, workers from other cities as well as people stranded by train schedules.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_cafe_refugee

sp332• 9 years ago

It probably wouldn't hurt to have those places as a fallback in case someone really needs them. At the same time, it seems like a bad idea to expect people to need them on a regular basis.

mindcrime• 9 years ago

I'm picturing something like an "Uber stop" somewhat similar to a truck-stop... combine a gas-station and restaurant with some of those Japanese "capsule hotel" sleeping pods[1], add wifi and maybe even a few coin-op washing machines / dryers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel

chadgeidel• 9 years ago

I honestly don't know why the US doesn't have these capsule hotels. I can see so many upsides and very few downsides.

"But the homeless might sleep in them". Better there than on the streets, no?

DashRattlesnake2• 9 years ago

I think it would make more sense for cities to mandate that workers be paid a livable wage for the area, rather than setting up and endorsing underclass-level living arrangements.

pizzetta3• 9 years ago

In the Case of some of these Uber drivers, they are kind of arbitraging costs. They live in Sacto but work in SF. But yeah, I'd support a tiered living wage (more for over 25yo, less for younger adults to give them a way to get into the labor force).

maxfurman2• 9 years ago

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

xapata4• 9 years ago

Why is it not right for drivers, but perfectly fine for migrant farm workers?

Perhaps society owes these people more, but not Uber.

ams61103• 9 years ago

I didn't see that claim in GP post.

loafa• 9 years ago

Since so-called "migrant farm workers" tend to be there illegally, what society owes them is a hearty punishment followed by a deportation.

Or if you're talking about the legal migrant farm workers, then what society owes them is the deportation of the illegals, so that they no longer have to compete on price with an unlimited number of people who shouldn't be there.

It's no surprise that unenforced immigration laws plus an open border to a third-world country drives down unskilled labour prices.

Heck, once we get rid of the illegals we may find that Uber prices go up too. The US doesn't really have an oversupply of unskilled labour.

1_2__32• 9 years ago

Uber owes its drivers more.

Why? Not trying to be snarky; why do they owe their drivers anything but incentive to work for them (which seems sufficient, or we wouldn't even be having this conversation int he first place).

Expecting companies to be morally upstanding is silly and a modern invention by the right. The right way to solve this is now by complaining about what Uber "owes" its drivers but in legislation. But we don't want to legislate businesses, we want to stay "nimble" and "flexible", so this is what we get as a result. Don't complain about lying in the bed we've made.

burkaman2• 9 years ago

Well, some states and cities and drivers have also made legal arguments that Uber owes its drivers more, but they don't seem to be winning (yet?).

kafkaesq2• 9 years ago

Not trying to be snarky; why do they owe their drivers anything but incentive to work for them?

Because karma is bitch, and history bites back.

And if Uber doesn't step up to the plate, and start doing what's not only right for its drivers, but (by any common-sense analysis) also right for its own balance sheets in the long term (as opposed to what appears to be right in the short-term for its megalomaniacal expansion plans)-- that is, make driving a sustainable profession to be in, and not just a "well as long as times aren't so great, let's see how long we can get away with screwing these people" (as appears to be their current motto) profession -- then soon enough, it's going to bite back on them -- hard.

LouisSayers2• 9 years ago

They should however have a responsibility to ensure drivers are driving responsibly, that they aren't sleep deprived.

Perhaps legislation will catch up here, forcing max hours and making Uber's car leasing model unsustainable. By the time it does however, the cars may be self driving in many cities anyway.

JumpCrisscross• 9 years ago

why do they owe their drivers anything but incentive to work for them

I'd say they may owe it to themselves. Press like this demoralizes employees, dissuades potential customers and hints at the presence of political capital for the taking. Whether those costs and risks are worth it is a business decision, of course, but public perception isn't a non-issue.

syshum3• 9 years ago

The right way to solve this is not via legislation, nor it is to expect Uber to be "morally upstanding"

Corporations are amoral, always have been, always will be.

The right way to solve this for people to stop using Uber, stop expecting the ultra low rates, just stop

The way to force morality upon corporations is for the CONSUMERS to be moral, and stop using the products and services of corporations that have policies they disagree with.

I love it when i hear people bitch about how terrible uber treats its drivers but continue to use them as their primary mode of transportation. THEY ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

As as example, I dislike Walmart, I have not stepped foot in a Walmart store in more than a decade.

If more people would vote with their wallet companies would change their policies, instead they look to government to use violence for force companies to change because anything else would inconvenience them.

it is the lazy way out.

munificent• 9 years ago

Expecting companies to be morally upstanding is silly and a modern invention

No, it is accepting that a social group is somehow free of all moral and ethical obligations by virtue of calling itself a "business" that is a silly modern invention.

Humans have are obligated to be morally upstanding. That obligation does not evaporate when we get together in a group, or when we file a business license to make that group "official".

hackuser8• 9 years ago

why do they owe their drivers anything but incentive to work for them (which seems sufficient, or we wouldn't even be having this conversation int he first place).

History is pretty clear on this point: Without protection, workers are at too great a disadvantage when negotiating with large businesses. Look at working conditions before unions became powerful and laws and regulations were passed - they were brutal and wrong.

djrogers• 9 years ago

One driver mentioned in the article leased his car from Uber and sleeps in it because it's the only way he can make enough to afford the payments.

You obviously didn't read the whole article (although the author clearly tried to bury this at the end) - quote from the same driver:

“I signed up for this because I am my boss. I kind of own the business. I have the freedom and that’s a beautiful thing,”

and

“These labor advocates, they don’t know what it’s like to be a driver. They think we’re not being treated right, but I’m happy. If I didn’t like it, I would do something else.”

tway13465234• 9 years ago

This jibes with my experience. Throwaway because reasons and personal.

I was doing work for <large, billion dollar tech company everyone knows> as an hourly contractor. I left to do some "sharing economy" stuff that, although is not the same as doing rideshares for Uber, it's something that's very, very similar. It involves driving. The changes that it brought were:

- Not having to do work that, at the end of the day, is the opposite of fulfilling

- Not having to answer for dumb, avoidable mistakes when the responsibility inevitably diffuses throughout the whole team

- Not having to deal with the workplace sociopaths who cause them

- Not being subjected to the whims of a mercurial, micromanaging supervisor

- Not having the stress of all these things creep into my life outside work

The downside to leaving and opting for what I'm doing now is basically this: big pay cut. I'm not a SV rockstar and have no nest egg, but this is paying for groceries and rent for the time being. I can say unequivocally that in regards to all these factors that people pretend to care about, I'm far more well off than I would have been at my former workplace, and yet if I had stayed, no one would have batted an eye and feigned to sympathize with the plight that resulted from those circumstances, because it was a "real" job.

I honestly could not give a relatable damn about the "I have my own schedule" aspects. I'm very big on planning, and the truth is that I'm able to make plans that stick even better than when I was at <the company>. By far the most important part is that when I'm not driving, I'm able to do things in my offtime that keep me sharp.

Before leaving, the idea that I could, say, build up my skills in my time off until something better comes along, was totally out of the question. I'd compare trying to stave off the braindamage of dealing with daily workplace nonsense to be similar to trying to maintain a healthy physique so that you're fit enough to enjoy your daily jog, all while your paycheck somehow relies on subjecting your body to junk food, soda, and cigarettes.

Now, I've got side projects and interesting avenues of research to explore.

jimmytucson• 9 years ago

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

r00fus• 9 years ago

Human freight is a bit different, neh?

The idea that my driver is overnighting in his/her car is not appealing to me as a rider. Does Uber not care about their image?

Next time I Uber/Lyft (rare, usually just airport shuttle) I'm going to ask about that.

strken7• 9 years ago

The "drivers can choose" argument is important because it shows that for at least one driver it is genuinely preferable to sleep in his car and work 70 hours a week than do anything else. Clearly, drivers are facing unemployment, poverty, or working conditions that are even worse.

It would be very easy to regulate the hell out of Uber and turn the unicorn into a donkey. However, that wouldn't improve the conditions that those in the economic class of drivers are subject to, it would just make them less visible. Fixing the Uber problem without providing any alternative employment options is a superficial placebo to make the wealthy feel more comfortable, because it doesn't correct any of the underlying economic problems. Those drivers will still exist, they'll just be pushed into agriculture, sweatshops, and dingy housing projects; hidden places, where nobody else has to look at them again.

There's a very good article called The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics[0] which states that "when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it", and "if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster." This seems to be the case with Uber, where they make money from a social and economic problem where there's an oversupply of unskilled labour, and thus get blamed for the working conditions that were already a reality for so many hidden and unnoticed people, even if they incrementally improve those conditions.

This is not a call to give Uber free rein, but rather to consider drivers as more or less rational human beings capable of making their own choices, and to consider driver wellbeing in that light.

[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20160806191858/https://blog.jaibo...

maxfurman2• 9 years ago

I'm not sure I agree. My idea of "fixing the Uber problem" is increasing the payout to drivers so they can afford a hotel room at the end of a 14 hour shift. This will directly improve the conditions of Uber drivers, at least.

anigbrowl3• 9 years ago

consider drivers as more or less rational human beings capable of making their own choices

Why? Behavioral economics shows us that many, perhaps most people have huge cognitive biases and make irrational choices. If this wasn't so then scamming people wouldn't be as profitable as it historically has been. To quote PT Barnum 'there's a sucker born every minute'; and while I don't feel like digging up statistics right now, there's tons of evidence that a significant proportion of the population is clueless.

hackuser8• 9 years ago

It would be very easy to regulate the hell out of Uber and turn the unicorn into a donkey. However, that wouldn't improve the conditions that those in the economic class of drivers are subject to

It's a bit of a strawman to use the hyperbole; plenty of industries are regulated, not regulated "the hell out of", and very profitable too. Also, I disagree with the second statement; labor regulations have a long history of helping workers and still do. They enjoy a 40 hour workweek, overtime, safe working conditions, protection for collective bargaining and much more.

It's the places where these things are absent, such as Uber and their non-employees, where people suffer more. Of course, anything can be taken too far, but unless workers have real power and leverage, they will be taken advantage of.

It may sound like economics, but it's not coincidence that everything the right wing promote strengthens business and/or weakens labor. The economic rationalizations are post-hoc talking points.

rhaps0dy• 9 years ago

I'll quote the end of the article:

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

yabatopia• 9 years ago

A modern day example of Stockholm Syndrome?

maverick_iceman• 9 years ago

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

patmcguire• 9 years ago

And this is with heavy Uber subsidies... if Uber manages to make a profit off of market rate while still paying their fixed costs (big if), it's going to be even worse for drivers.

1812Overture• 9 years ago

They just have to stay afloat until they can cut out the drivers entirely.

ilaksh• 9 years ago

There isn't enough competition even though Lyft is trying and the regulation attempts are ineffective.

Maybe an app or something could make regulation more effective somehow.

J5892• 9 years ago

"We're the Uber of Uber regulations!"

chrissnell2• 9 years ago

I live in small-town Kansas but commute to San Francisco occasionally for my job, which is based there. I just got back from a trip last week and noticed something startling about the Uber drivers that ferried me around: never before have I seen drivers this bad. Twice in one week, my drivers nearly ran over a pedestrian. On one of those incidents, a guy was walking across a crosswalk in North Beach in broad daylight. Everybody in this Uber Pool was screaming "stop!" as the driver ran right up on this poor guy but the driver seemed oblivious, like the guy was invisible. The only explanation, I think, is that our driver was extremely fatigued.

I predict that rideshare-pedestrian deaths are going to skyrocket in 2017 as more drivers take desperate measures to try to get by.

otoburb• 9 years ago

I heard anecdotally that drivers with ratings below 4.6 have their Uber driver accounts shutdown.

In this instance, how would the rating work for drivers in an UberPool? Does each person's vote count for only 1/n, or is each one a full vote? If it's full votes for all riders in a single UberPool ride, all it probably takes are a couple of mediocre UberPool experiences and the driver is selected out of the driving pool.

civilian2• 9 years ago

I thought it was anything below 4, but who knows.

When I have unsafe drivers I aggressively rate them 1 or 2s depending on what it was. I know that it's "mean" to the driver, but I'm being kind to future passengers, pedestrians, and everyone who shares the road.

ryen• 9 years ago

I wouldn't believe any assumptions around how Uber ratings affect drivers. In many cities Uber's demand outweighs their pool of available drivers. Its not in their best interest to remove drivers from their platform other than the most egregious cases.

amyjess• 9 years ago

I heard anecdotally that drivers with ratings below 4.6 have their Uber driver accounts shutdown.

Uber and Lyft say they do this, but I've personally seen drivers with lower ratings kicking around. Anyone know what's up with that?

thaeli2• 9 years ago

Uber doesn't disclose their exact process, of course, but it appears to be mostly stack ranking. Firing the bottom 10% or whatever ends up meaning around a 4.6 in most markets, but median driver ratings vary by market. The stack rank isn't immediate either, and may have factors such as number of trips driven. But that's basically what's going on. (I don't know specifically how this applies to UberPool ratings)

m0llusk• 9 years ago

Being ready to fire workers quickly leads to additional recruiting pressure, workforce churn, and ultimately lowers the quality of service.

rosser2• 9 years ago

This is why I use Lyft over Uber. It's anecdotal (though remarkably consistent, even accounting for confirmation bias), but when I get in an Uber — which isn't often; I don't even have the app installed on my device, so I'm only getting in one if I'm with someone else who summoned one — I can expect assholery in traffic. And I just don't see that with Lyft drivers, even when I'm riding with a driver who takes fares from both.

It's like there's some sort of un- (or under-) stated thing amongst the Uber drivers, such that fare turnover beats traffic safety.

chrissnell2• 9 years ago

I don't think that Uber is any better than Lyft. So many of these drivers work for both. I have no data to back this up but I believe the cause is shared rides such as Uber Pool and Lyft Line. The low-revenue/high-volume nature seems to encourage these drivers to drive as fast and as long as possible. I don't remember seeing bad driving so much, back before these shared services.

eeeeeeeeeeeee• 9 years ago

Lyft is more upfront about tipping too, which is why I prefer to use them now. I have issues with both, but Lyft seems to actually try to give the idea that they care about their "employees" whereas Uber seems to be on a literal crash course to making something work before self-driving cars can take over and they can fire all the humans.

SilasX• 9 years ago

I think that's a natural effect of finding something that "works, but not at scale". If you try to have as many drivers at the same driver cost that cab companies have[1], you have to keep digging deeper into the applicant pool for less desirable and more frantic drivers (who realize they need to do a lot of fares to come out ahead).

Uber's use of technology has certainly delivered a better experience per dollar spent, but it still runs into these effects.

[1] cab companies don't pay drivers directly, but there's an "implicit driver cost" that underlies how much they're able to rent the cabs for relative to the revenue drivers pull in

ams61103• 9 years ago

Uber drivers are commercial drivers. There's no way around it. They should have a chauffeurs license at minimum and be subject to DOT limits on hours per week and hours per shift and hours between shifts.

ProAm4• 9 years ago

It's ride sharing, they are not commercial drivers, besides the robots will be driving for us shortly. This is more a story about people needing to resort to Uber to make money and in a city not near their home because even Uber isnt enough money in their home town.

thisrod• 9 years ago

I think the long term answer is to copy the rules for aviation, where a Private Pilot Licence is different from a Commercial Pilot Licence, and the rules about what the holders can do are clear and widely publicised. "Uber for planes" would be highly illegal, and everyone involved would get arrested.

Even without regulation, there must be a huge legal risk that Uber's lack of a serious fatigue management system will be found to be negligent. The ways this goes wrong in the trucking industry are very well known.

bdcravens• 9 years ago

There's a reason why Uber has taken almost $9B in funding. I say it's for a legal warchest: innovate without restriction and just deal with legal and ethical "messes" as they occur.

hengheng• 9 years ago

I remember when YouTube was bought by Google, they put aside $1B in a similar fashion to weather any legal troubles coming their way.

tedunangst• 9 years ago

It's not just about the $80000 salary. It's about the company perks, like organized camping trips.

_dark_matter_2• 9 years ago

The company proudly proclaims that the share of drivers who work less than 10 hours a week has climbed to more than 60 percent

I'm very interested in these kinds of stats. I'd imagine this is like any other distribution - long, long tailed; with lots of drivers who have driven once, twice, or what have you. Give me the stats on heavy drivers. What fraction of drivers work > 40 hours a week? What fraction of miles driven are driven by heavy drivers? What fraction of <10 hour a week drivers have other jobs? How many hours a week does an Uber driver without another job drive on average?

The company is giving us just the slice that looks good. I'm sure if you started diving into these questions, it wouldn't be pretty.

calvinbhai2• 9 years ago

You are asking the right question. And Uber will never share answers to such questions :)

Even if 90% of Uber drivers drive <10 hr a week, its quite possible that more than 90% of the total ride time is be drivers who drive ~24 hrs a day.

In India, most Uber drivers I spoke to had a common thread. They buy new car, slog day and night to pay off the monthly payments, which means sleep for 3-4 hrs, work for 12 - 14 hrs.

Sleeping they do, wherever they'd find a safe place to park the car, and sign out of the Uber app. Basically no life of their own, until they pay off the car.

For many, lured by Uber's scheme of 'leasing to buy' cars scheme, once they have had the car for a month, its difficult to get out of that scheme because of loss aversion, and hope of independence after slogging for 3 to 4 years.

_dark_matter_2• 9 years ago

It is indentured slavery. I hate to say it, but my fellow tech workers are embarrassing us. We need to stand up for these workers. How many people that work at Uber would disagree with this practice but never speak up about it?

zitterbewegung• 9 years ago

A lot of times when Uber comes up and people say that Uber should do more to compensate their drivers. Also, a different person posts that Uber is subsidizing rides to stay afloat. If we combine these two premises then we begin to understand that Uber is probably doing all the subsidizing that they consider reasonable and is burning through investors money to do this and that their actions are STILL not able to provide for a reasonable job.

benologist• 9 years ago

I think part of the problem is wanting 'driver' to always be a reasonable job, when shift-length limits are also preventing drivers from working the mammoth shifts that made it pay like a reasonable job before. People working 70+ hours to get by were really working something like 2 - 3 low-paying jobs all along, now they have to be different jobs.

anigbrowl3• 9 years ago

I think the problem is the idea that you should have to work 70+ hours a week just to afford the necessities of life. It's not healthy or sustainable over the long term.

josefresco• 9 years ago

The sharing economy for parking lots and bathrooms.

phkahler• 9 years ago

I just read an article about obsolete features in homes. One was garages. They claimed the rise of ride sharing and self driving cars would mean people need less space to store their cars. My first thought was that those things would not mean less driving going on, perhaps fewer total cars, but then where would those self driving and uber cars be stored?

anigbrowl3• 9 years ago

Less demand for off-street parking doesn't mean it's going to disappear completely, though. I have no particular use for my driveway, but I let my neighbor park there for a nominal fee.

jaemccall• 9 years ago

Do you happen to have a link, or remember the title?

CamelCaseName2• 9 years ago

Well storage space would first and foremost decline substantially as cars spend a huge amount of time on the road. So instead of sitting in a parking spot 23 hours a day, it would sit there maybe 6-8 hours a day (at night)

So where does it stay during those 6-8 hours? Well why not out in the streets in residential areas where it's as close as possible to people who would likely be commuting early in the morning. The streets would be fairly empty and it wouldn't be an issue because self driving cars would easily maneuver themselves.

This would be a scenario where all cars are owned by some organization (e.g. uber, the government, etc.) and then rented per trip by users. The result is cost savings for everyone involved.

ddp• 9 years ago

Awesome! India here we come!

DigitalJack2• 9 years ago

I love uber. When we were snowed in and my wife needed to get to the airport, an uber driver in a Tahoe got the job done.

However, all the financial news I read about is how much money uber is losing.

My question is, where does it go? Insurance? Legal municipal wrangling? Embezzlement?

Also, looks like a startup opportunity for providing Uber drivers a safe place to spend the night (self storage style).

prawn• 9 years ago

Paying drivers more than they are making from customers.

DigitalJack2• 9 years ago

So it's a game of "who can lose money the longest?"

I guess the customer's win for as long as the VCs want to pour money into it. It's hard for me to believe that's a winning strategy... even if you outlast the competition, eventually you have to start making money and as soon as you raise prices again, competition can start back up.

I'm probably underestimating network effects.

a3n• 9 years ago

"... and how long to drive."

Hopefully there won't be many fatigue related accidents. But no worries for Uber, the drivers aren't employees!

doozy• 9 years ago

In Dickens' time kids were chained to the machines and beds were rented per shift, so they were always kept warm.

Now it's also adults in the prime of their earning years and the bed is now gone, the baron robbers of Silicon Valley took the last perk of the working man.

I wonder how this age will be remembered in a couple of centuries.

When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the U.S.

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