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

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-24/uber-is-locking-out-new-york-city-drivers-mid-shift-to-lower-minimum-pay

by aspenmayer • 2 years ago

77 115 2 years ago

bloomberg.com

aspenmayer• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/x5Ywo

elmerfud3• 2 years 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.

quantified2• 2 years 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/] 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!

elmerfud3• 2 years 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.

kortilla• 2 years ago

Taxis suck swamp ass. Until they can’t scam you by taking circuitous routes, they are severely inferior.

goostavos• 2 years ago

I begrudgingly take a taxi whenever I leave the Seattle airport (it's significantly faster than Uber/Lyft because they're already queued). I'm continuously blown away by how it's still a dice roll to see if we're going to do the "credit card machine no work" game at the end. Pair that with the general disgusting state of the cars and, yeah, I ain't takin' no taxi unless it's the only option.

jkaplowitz3• 2 years 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.

elmerfud3• 2 years 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.

Aurornis• 2 years ago

Nothing about this concept is incompatible with flexible gig work.

Your example (movers) assumes the workers are already paired up with a customer.

They don’t get paid if there isn’t a customer.

The analogy doesn’t hold. The only way to support minimum shift durations would be to average out fares collected and distribute them to everyone who was technically working a shift, even if they weren’t driving. So the people actually driving would receive less payment in order to subsidize the people not driving.

Once you open the door to paying people for not driving, the game becomes to find a way to park somewhere that allows you to participate in a shift while minimizing the number of customers assigned. Immediately, you’d get drivers strategically parking in far away locations to reduce their chances of picking anyone up, because if you’re getting paid for the time on shift you’d rather sit and do nothing than actually drive.

So actually, the concept is completely incompatible with gig work.

s17n• 2 years ago

Obviously, what people want is full time jobs. That's what the whole political battle over these platforms is about.

testfoobar3• 2 years ago

Not everyone though - freelancers and contractors in particular want to work on their terms.

HDThoreaun3• 2 years ago

Some people do, some certainly do not

nilamo• 2 years ago

Maybe all of these issues would be solved of they were salaried employees, who could drive when they wanted...

qeternity• 2 years ago

What?!? Would you employee people full-time and let them work whenever they felt like it?

jncfhnb• 2 years 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

FrustratedMonky5• 2 years 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• 2 years 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.

lmm2• 2 years 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.

WheatMillington4• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

By your reasoning literally every job is “gig work”.

ziml77• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

Uber drivers have been able to see the approximate destination before accepting the ride for over a year now in all markets.

pavel_lishin3• 2 years 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.

blendergeek• 2 years ago

in all markets.

I am an Uber driver. I do not see the approximate destination prior to pickup. I don't know what percentage of Uber markets actually have that feature.

vsuperpower20202• 2 years ago

You're very confident about this, aren't you?

AdamJacobMuller• 2 years ago

It also sucks for the riders and I really can't imagine Uber likes the situation either.

It's a really annoying situation because you end up arguing with some driver over text or worse in person about it.

They don't want to cancel because cancelling a lot impacts their rating with uber and they will get less rides.

I don't want to cancel because after a few minutes I'll be charged a cancellation fee and now I have to start all over with another driver and a dice-roll if i'll get another driver who refuses to go to NYC again. If I want my $5 back I also have to argue with some AI customer service rep for an hour.

Terrible user experience.

Lyft seems to do better with assigning only TLC cars to NYC rides, but, not 100% -- Uber also biases towards TLC cars for NYC routes but there isn't always one available of course so sometimes you get assigned another one, just anecdotally Lyft seems to get you a TLC car more often.

TLC are the only ones winning here.

tivert3• 2 years ago

It also sucks for the riders and I really can't imagine Uber likes the situation either.

I think the question is what does Uber do when it doesn't like a situation? Does it try to create the best user experience given the constraints, or does it make the situation shitty for everyone except themselves (maybe until it can force whatever change best serves Uber's interests, nevermind anyone else)?

It sounds like it's totally within Uber's capabilities to make this situation better (add a "TLC car" flag to their system, and only use those cars for NYC rides), so why have they chosen not to do that?

WheatMillington4• 2 years ago

Help me understand this as I'm not in NY and I use uber about 2-3 times a year. When you use Uber you put in your destination up-front - so everyone already knows where you are and where you're going, why isn't this information used by drivers to make a decision on whether or not to accept?

jtriangle• 2 years ago

Uber could certainly throw additional tech at this problem, but, realistically, the problem is the fault of NYC, not Uber. If NYC got rid of their antiquated laws, this would be a non-issue, and, rides would likely be cheaper and easier to obtain.

Not to mention you really don't want big names like Uber/Lyft to be the only players that can enter the game because they have the resources to enter a complex regulatory market.

tivert3• 2 years ago

Uber could certainly throw additional tech at this problem, but, realistically, the problem is the fault of NYC, not Uber. If NYC got rid of their antiquated laws, this would be a non-issue, and, rides would likely be cheaper and easier to obtain.

No, you've got it ass-backwards. It's Uber's job to provide the best customer experience given their constraints, it's not NYC's job to bend over backwards to adapt its laws to Uber's model.

The problem is the fault of Uber.

Not to mention you really don't want big names like Uber/Lyft to be the only players that can enter the game because they have the resources to enter a complex regulatory market.

It sounds the additional tech required to "enter a complex regulatory market" is a boolean flag.

m463• 2 years ago

T&LC = New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission

farceSpherule• 2 years ago

F*ck Uber.

I wish the United States would do what Greece did.

sdwr• 2 years ago

Implement a 6 day work week?

MaxHoppersGhost• 2 years ago

Negative gdp growth and a rapidly declining standard of living?

gruez11• 2 years ago

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.

vsuperpower20202• 2 years ago

Miraculously, the US has managed to achieve positive gdp growth and a rapidly declining standard of living.

hnpolicestate• 2 years 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• 2 years 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.

curtis3389• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

Seems like they are following the letter of the law.

testfoobar3• 2 years 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.

CodeWriter232• 2 years 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.

HDThoreaun3• 2 years ago

Uber was created because taxis blew due to corruption. It should not cost 100k to become a taxi driver, that was absolutely insane.

diebeforei485• 2 years ago

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

taylorbuley• 2 years 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.

gruez11• 2 years 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-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.

subsubzero• 2 years 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• 2 years 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.

gruez11• 2 years ago

That was the case before NYC instituted laws that mandated drivers be paid for idle time, converting them to basically employees.

larkost3• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

T+LC cabs use Curb, which can call taxis and be used only as a payment method.

https://www.gocurb.com/

mannyv• 2 years ago

Company is minimizing its costs. News at 11.

FrustratedMonky5• 2 years 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.

FrustratedMonky5• 2 years 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.

gruez11• 2 years 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)

FrustratedMonky5• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years 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?

crazygringo6• 2 years 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.

mrgoldenbrown2• 2 years 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.

crazygringo6• 2 years ago

Yeah, that's how it worked previously with taxi medallions. They "worked together as an industry" and medallion owners extorted drivers and it was impossible to get a cab at rush hour and taxis were dirty and reeked of cigarette smoke because there was no competition.

The simple fact is, if you want enough vehicles to meet peak demand, then a lot of those drivers and vehicles aren't needed the rest of the day. That's just economics. It's not a false binary, it's simply how supply and demand works. You either kick a bunch of them off or lower the pay until they a bunch of them kick themselves off.

Or you go back to not meeting demand so that all drivers can work full time, and it once again becomes impossible to get a ride during rush hour.

gruez11• 2 years ago

You are claiming a false binary. They could hire drivers as employees.

Isn't that what's essentially happening today? They're forced to "hire drivers as employees" (insofar as being guaranteed pay even if there's no work to be done), and the results were predictable: the firms simply refuse to hire all the drivers. Previously they were willing to take on anyone they can, because they didn't have to pay for them even if they didn't have work for them.

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

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