Uber Drivers Protest Outside the Company’s San Francisco Headquarters

http://allthingsd.com/20130315/uber-drivers-protest-outside-the-companys-san-francisco-headquarters/

by bcn • 13 years ago

95 163 13 years ago

What a surprise...commodity producers aren't happy with commodity pay. Never would have predicted that.

netaustin• 13 years ago

Black car service is hardly commodity labor. Corn is a commodity. Oil is a commodity. The difference between a good driver and a bad one is tremendous--the better ones drive confidently and know where they're going, and the bad ones are tethered to their GPS. As a frequent user of Uber (in NYC) I've seen both.

But I understand I'm not paying for a commodity, which is why this concerns me. My relationship with Uber is through its drivers, not their app--I'm just worried they don't understand that.

sybhn2• 13 years ago

There are degres of commodity, it does not only apply to raw material, i.e. IT infrastructure is turning into commodity, but you will still find differentials. The range of differentials is what defines if it's commodity or not.

I would agree with the previous poster, drivers are mostly commodity producers. Just like barbers, you might find one exceptional here and then, but generally it's all commodity.

jamiequint7• 13 years ago

If they hate Uber so much they should stop using it. They aren't obligated to Uber in any way.

The "rampant firing" happens when drivers who suck get poor ratings (below 4.7 and you go on probation according to an Uber driver I talked to) sounds like their own problem not Uber's.

Sam_Odio2• 13 years ago

Not sure why this is getting downvoted, seems like a valid point (specifically, if they dislike Uber they should stop using it). Can anyone elaborate?

fnordfnordfnord2• 13 years ago

Well Sam, if I had some issue that I wanted to discuss, and the response I got from you was [take it or leave it/piss off/eat crap/sit on it and spin/go fly a kite]. I might down-vote you.

The fact that the drivers want to negotiate means they clearly like something about working with Uber.

ryan_f3• 13 years ago

It's not as simple as you state. Uber gets a lot of the business so the drivers won't have work without them. That 4.7 is out of 5 also and it is true about the terminations. I have witnessed the mass firings and how they are handled.

Drivers also can't dispute their ratings so it takes one person to give them a one star which could lead to being fired. And can you truly say all customers are fair in their ratings?

The best thing that could happen for these drivers is having another company open up to compete against uber. Then they wouldn't be a commodity.

If they were not "taxi drivers" than everyone would be furious at how they are treated.

socalnate1• 13 years ago

What exactly were these drivers doing before Uber showed up?

samstave5• 13 years ago

Uber should have audio and video captured. And review the audio/video whenever a rating is poor.

pclark3• 13 years ago

it seems kind of ridiculous to presume that one rogue one star rating would get a driver fired. i would assume that there is more to firing drivers than simply the rating system – someone must talk to the passenger to figure out what is up.

dreamdu5t• 13 years ago

I've never used Uber but that is absolutely insane!! How is that not a management nightmare!? I'm floored that this is seen as good management of their driver fleet.

_stephan• 13 years ago

How could anyone introduce such a rating/firing system? Is that the way you would want to be treated as an employee or contractor?

pud• 13 years ago

> below 4.7 and you go on probation

This brings up a related point. For a typical Uber ride, do you give the driver 3-stars or 5-stars?

I usually give 5-stars when a ride goes smoothly. But I know people who default to 3-stars (average) unless the driver goes out of his way & is exceptional.

I've considered switching my default to 4-stars for a nice ride, leaving me a 1-star buffer for exceptional service. But using that scale, I wouldn't want a 4.7 driver to get dinged.

eridius5• 13 years ago

You know people use 3-star average for Uber? That surprises me.

One of my earlier Uber rides I decided to go ahead and rate 3 stars because I felt it was a fairly average ride. Pretty quickly I got contacted by someone at Uber who wanted to ask me what was wrong with my ride. When I explained that I felt it was merely average, they told me a simplistic version of what jamiequint said, that they only want to work with the best drivers and therefore 3 isn't an average rating, it's actually a bad rating.

samstave5• 13 years ago

I've never given less than 5 stars. Every ride I have had with Uber has been perfect - aside from the cost :)

bcoates• 13 years ago

I hope they aren't comparing ratings directly for exactly this reason. They should be using something like z-scores where you measure every rating in standard deviation from the mean for that rater.

damncabbage2• 13 years ago

Telstra (Australian Telco) internally uses a number rating for B2B sales and sales-support teams, and point inflation has made it useless. The Sales guys end up needing to explain to the customers what the numbers really mean; 8/10 was being left for "great service", but that qualified as a failure by the internal metrics.

(To make it even worse, the management accidentally let the sales meet their target once; some people actually got their bonuses, so upstairs bumped the minimum target score again.)

nikcub• 13 years ago

> But I know people who default to 3-stars (average)

You'd think they would be normalizing that data against that users average ratings, rather than as a raw score.

For eg. is this rating plus or minus this users average rating.

robryan• 13 years ago

Similar to Amazon, we get people who give a 3/5 and write "good" or similar as a comment. Amazon treats 3 or below as a negative.

littlegiantcap• 13 years ago

I think it's also very pertinent to point out that they in fact aren't employees of Uber. They aren't being denied work or fired, they're being denied from using Uber's service. This is absolutely no different than hell banning a troublesome user on a site.

damncabbage2• 13 years ago

“Uber chooses to call us partners for their tax benefit. If they called us employees, they’d have to cover us all,” said Alazzeh.

twelvechairs• 13 years ago

They have every right to complain (whether or not they stop using Uber). They are (successfully it seems) drawing the wider public's attention to an issue. Low-skilled labour always teeters on the edge of turning into sweatshop conditions (huge working hours, poor security, low pay). This is especially an issue for monopolised industries (like Uber). I'm not sure how bad it is for them really (I live in Australia), but I really don't see how you can take issue with their right to discuss it.

As far as I knew, not being able to complain about conditions was something for China and Africa, not for advanced egalitarian societies...

yesplorer• 13 years ago

nobody has monopolized the cab hailing industry (for Uber)

kpao• 13 years ago

Not really... I spoke with a driver down in LA once, he got on probation because 2 obnoxious passengers rated him 1 star. One of them was smoking in the vehicle, got told to stop, didn't like it, 1 star... The other one wanted to get to the other side of the city in 45 minutes on a Friday afternoon at 4pm... They didn't make it despite the driver's best effort, so she rated 1 star.

That seems unfair that the driver gets on probation for those 2 instances.

konstruktor2• 13 years ago

Walking out is one way to exert influence in a market, organising is another. They are also not obligated to choose the option you want them to.

abcd_f• 13 years ago

They should really use a simpler rating system

  I'd like to use this driver again
  I'd like not to use this driver again
  I don't feel either way

That's it.

carlob3• 13 years ago

The fact that they are being called partners and not employees is probably something that tax enforcement should look into.

I don't know jackshit about California law on that, but it seems reasonable that this means that the company is:

1. paying less taxes than it should and shifting the cost onto its employees.

2. denying their workers benefits they would be entitled to as employees (401k, healthcare…).

3. denying their workers rights they would be entitled to as employees (maternity leave…).

4. being far too elastic when demand is low. With employees they'd have constant costs even with no customers.

Those are all reasons why we have labor laws, and why at-will employment can work only for the most sought after professions, and not for blue collars.

pessimizer• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure that all of those things are legal.

18pfsmt3• 13 years ago

In the freight transport world, the truckers that work for carriers directly make 1/2 to 1/3 what the independents get. In addition, the independents have the right to chose when they work, so if they want to take a week off, that's their prerogative (no requests required). It's fundamentally, a different arrangement.

pron11• 13 years ago

Of course it's their problem. They're the ones being fired. Let's assume that all customer ratings are merited and that Uber puts in place all of the wonderful suggestions made by other commenters here, that ensure people only give a bad review if it's very well deserved. Now, suppose you're an Uber driver, and you wife has just left you or you've found out that your daughter is sick. I think you'll be having a very bad week at work. You might even be -- god forbid -- rude to a customer. Or, let's not go that far; say your boss has mistreated you or you think your pay is unfair and you're just having a bad day. So you think these cases should mean automatic termination, too. That the driver who lost his wife should lose his job too because he wasn't able to fully maintain his composure and provide the service Uber customers expect. These are not just people -- they are your employees! (de facto if not de jure).

This brings us to the very important question of what a business is for. There are several views on the subject, but I like this one: a company is a social organization constructed for the purpose of providing income to its members, namely its owners and employees. Now, I'm not saying everyone should get the same -- some have assumed a greater risk than others, and the laws of supply and demand are at play when it comes to skills, too -- but the pay should be fair because that is the company's raison d'etre. "The customer comes first" only inasmuch it helps achieving this goal; if you don't treat your customers right, you will lose their business to competitors and will be unable to provide for your employees. But really, it's the employees who come first.

The place of work is a very important social organization, because you spend most of your day as its member. This organization not only provides you with livelihood, but with a sense of respect; for many, what they do and where they work is an important part of who they are.

And that is why when I hear of a business mistreating its customers, I think "that's a really bad business", but when I hear of a business mistreating its employees -- I get angry; that's breaking a social contract, and one with people who are weaker than you and that you have responsibility for. That's why you may dislike that couple down the block who are rude to everyone, but if you heard that your next door neighbors, who are always nice and offer to water your plants when you're gone, are pimping their daughters, you'll get really mad.

Automatically firing your employees based on a few bad reviews (if that's what Uber is in fact doing, according to the information presented), is akin (continuing the family analogy that I'm growing tired of) to kicking your child out of the house for getting bad grades at school. Sure, the kid has a responsibility to learn, but you have a stronger responsibility towards your kid.

It appears that Uber thinks that by not calling their employees "employees" they are somehow absolved from this social contract. They're not. Now, I'm not saying that Uber are definitely in the wrong here because we have not yet heard their side. Maybe those drivers are lazy money-grubbers seeking to exploit their good-hearted, yet gullible, employers. But the allegations sound very serious.

18pfsmt3• 13 years ago

While I sympathize with the drivers' right to protest for better treatment, I wouldn't characterize these drivers as employees. It sounds like they should be protesting the lack of granularity/ accuracy of the Uber rating system.

Just so you know where I am coming from: I work in a very similar industry (freight transport), and this model is very common with truck carriers, brokers, independent owner-operators, etc.

I've worked as a contractor at two previous tech companies where I was once an employee, and one of them eventually ended up offering half my rate because I did such a poor job on a particular project (I had lots of personal issues to contend with and was trying to start a business). If I had thought it was unfair, and a systematic way to lower costs, I might have made a stink with other contractors, but I knew it was my own, so I just quit dealing with them.

Just to reiterate my main point: Contractors are not employees, and the relationship is well defined, and not just to skirt some obligation. It is usually done to align priorities, and assure responsibility and maximum pay for the contractor.

jamiequint7• 13 years ago

Drivers are not getting cut off after one or two bad rides, they are cut off after consistently low ratings. With a rating threshold of 4.7 an Uber driver can have 7.5% of their rides be rated at 1 star (with the rest at 5) and still meet the minimum threshold. We're not talking about one bad day here. Not to mention that once they drop below the 4.7 threshold they still have 2 weeks to get back above it. There are plenty of Uber drivers who have no problem staying employed, we are just hearing from the vocal minority.

You seem to be implying that by firing under-performers Uber is somehow mistreating its workers. I would argue that's simply false. In environments with literally hundreds of people waiting at the door to take your job the environment is going to be more competitive, and it should be. This is not a blue-collar only thing, sales works the same way in many organizations. It does not mean fired salespeople are being mistreated, its just the way business works.

I really don't agree with your conception of a business as a entity that has social responsibility to its employees. Businesses exist to return value to shareholders, not to employees (although they may occasionally be shareholders also). If treating employees extremely well is good for business (e.g. Google) then businesses will do it. This usually exists in an environment where there is a surplus of demand for the employees you want. If there is a surplus of supply, employees don't tend to be treated like that (e.g. Cable Assembly Factory - a place I once worked for 2 years). Its unreasonable to expect a business to be generous to its employees at the expense of its shareholders, it just doesn't make for a very efficient business or a very efficient marketplace.

potatolicious3• 13 years ago

Having spent a lot of time on HN, I think the demographics here roughly break down to two halves: those who react with empathy to people in weak positions, and those who react with disdain.

The bulk of this discussion (and many others) really just boil down to this.

Sometimes I wonder if the seeming distribution of sociopaths on HN is representative of the general population, or if we have more of them than other communities.

spullara2• 13 years ago

I love the way Uber works and use it all the time. It is hard for me to assess whether they have a legitimate gripe though since every driver I have asked directly about the service (which is every ride I take) has answered enthusiastically positive. Maybe just trying to use their leverage to negotiate rather than being truly harmed?

bmelton• 13 years ago

I haven't used it in San Francisco, but I use DC Uber all the time, and I too have had the same response. That said, I would expect most employees to say good things about their employers, even if that weren't the case.

I know I personally wouldn't ever say anything negative about my employer, even though I personally haven't any cause to.

spullara2• 13 years ago

I'd count anything neutral as negative. Something I have noticed is that many UberX drivers were formerly UberBLACK drivers. Not sure why though.

eridius5• 13 years ago

Maybe the bad drivers are the ones that are picketing, and you're only talking to good drivers? If the good drivers are pleased with the way Uber works, then maybe they're doing something right.

pmb2• 13 years ago

The Uber drivers I have asked have also all been very positive. I asked one whether he was dispatched by anyone else, and he said that he used to be, but no longer - now he was Uber-only and he was glad he could ditch the dispatcher model.

The guys that own their own cars are not Uber employees - they can sign up to be dispatched by traditional radios instead (or as well). So, from my sample in NYC, Uber is way better than existing models for the drivers.

harlanlewis• 13 years ago

I used to talk to all my drivers about this, too - an easy conversation prompt to pass the time if nothing else. But while most spoke positively, I began to get the impression that they follow the basic rule of don't bad mouth your employer to customers. Pair that with the risk of saying the wrong things to a secretshopper-type riders, and it's become difficult for me to take Uber reviews from drivers at face value.

badgar4• 13 years ago

Taxi drivers are expected to provide a positive environment for their fares. This includes pleasant, casual conversation.

Your driver doesn't know you're deeply interested in tech startups like his employer. Almost all taxi conversations are brief, casual, on the surface. If your next taxi driver took an innocent small-talk question as a chance to air his gripes about his new, better employer, how would you feel at the end of the ride? How are you going to rate that driver? 1 star? Oh shit, now he's canned.

You're getting the only safe answer to your question. For all you know, the drivers are terrified to speak out.

Sam_Odio2• 13 years ago

As far as I can tell this is mostly a consequence of Uber responding to the market (i.e.: competitors like Lyft). With Uber X, Black car drivers no longer have a monopoly on convenient transportation (and from what I hear, that has significantly decreased their business). I can't entirely fault Uber for this...they need to adapt or die.

dunsudu5• 13 years ago

This is really an irrelevant question - but why does Uber make a big deal out of the colour of the car? They say on their website that a particular tier gets you a black car, and you say there something about black car drivers. Why would you care if your car is black, or red, or yellow, or whatever. I can understand not wanting a fucking pink car or something, but still.

Eg "Hop into the sleek black car", "Our classic black car option is the default". WTF?

Maybe it's a US thing - I'm from the UK and I have no idea why you would need a car of a particular colour.

andyakb2• 13 years ago

It doesn't literally apply to just the color of the car. A black car is a luxury car, compare it to first class vs coach in airlines

hayksaakian• 13 years ago

Some regions of the US have explicit laws about colors of cars and what category of transportation they are licensed under. See new York city.

Aloisius3• 13 years ago

The vast majority of "black cars" are Lincoln Town Cars made for livery services. They are very comfortable and roomy for a passenger to get into. And not all of them are black, that is just shorthand to say it is a full-sized sedan.

smoyer• 13 years ago

"A large group ..."

I count 25 (or 24 if the guy at right-rear has big hair) people in the picture and I suspect that if there were more than that, they'd have made sure to squeeze them into the shot.

A small group (proportionally) if you look at the number of drivers Uber has. And do they really represent drivers from the other cities served by Uber or is that wishful thinking.

"They don’t have the balls to come down and talk to us" ... maybe because they're busy dispatching thousand of drivers to waiting customers? If Uber is really that hard on the drivers, why don't they work elsewhere? They have no contract, so they're free to go.

danielsiders• 13 years ago

Can anyone verify that Uber isn't requiring commercial liability insurance from their drivers anymore? If so, that's a huge deal.

Aloisius3• 13 years ago

They are livery drivers. Aren't they required by the state to carry liability insurance?

habosa4• 13 years ago

Why is the prevailing attitude in these comments "they have no contract with Uber, they should leave if they don't like it"? Many people in tech have at-will contracts yet when we get articles on HN about bad work conditions we don't just say "well then quit!". I do agree that in the long term these unhappy drivers should look for a different source of income but for now they clearly need uber and as such it's not unfair of them to express their distaste for certain things uber does until they find a better place to work.

wilfra2• 13 years ago

Why? Because taxi drivers are blue collar workers and people perceive them as commodities who should feel lucky to be employed. It works the other way also. Try getting sympathy from a mechanic because Yahoo wont let you earn 6 figures writing code from your house.

habosa4• 13 years ago

I didn't want to outright accuse the commenters of that sort of sentiment but that does seem to be the case.

seivan• 13 years ago

I like blue collar workers more than I like Marketing, UX-guys and MBA's.

jamiequint7• 13 years ago

I'm not sure which bad work conditions articles you're referring to but if you're a developer and your employer is giving you a hard time or being unfair you should quit. That is a much better solution than expecting someone else to legislate some kind of solution to your problem (with all the externalities that usually go along with such "solutions").

habosa4• 13 years ago

I'm just saying that people don't always have the luxury of quitting, especially when you're working because you need the paycheck in the short term which I'm betting is more common for Uber drivers than for software engineers. Like I said, they should quit in the long term if things don't improve but I don't think it's crazy for them to attempt to get their current employer to make improvements before they walk out the door.

kirillzubovsky4• 13 years ago

Jamie, you know, it's kind of funny that people complain about these driver's "poor" conditions. I took an Uber black car ride about a month ago and chatted with the driver - he works for 6 months and then passes the car to his cousin, while he uses all the money he's earned to chill on the beach in Brazil. Oh, did I mention that he works for ~20 hours, but only 3 times a week, or whenever he feels like getting out of bed? Yeah, the dude wasn't just unhappy, he was overjoyed with the flexibility and ridiculously good pay of his job. But of course, if 10 people chant outside of a building, they aren't just disgruntle losers, they are unhappy because they aren't given then. sigh

doktrin• 13 years ago

Frankly, the entire mentality reminds me of such absurdities as "America, love it or leave it" and "if you don't like it, go to Russia".

Not only are such responses markedly devoid of empathy, they are also bizarrely illogical. Employees and "partners" both have the right to organize and attempt to effect change.

Lastly, all this free market cheerleading also sounds fairly hollow coming from a currently privileged class. I can't help but think attitudes would be different in more trying times.

bmmayer1• 13 years ago

I had a Sidecar driver this afternoon who told me he was suspended by Uber after he had the bad luck to get Travis Kalanick as a passenger, and failed to pick him up on the right side of the street (according to him).

larrys2• 13 years ago

"he had the bad luck to get"

In fact all of these rating and ranking systems (as well as public commenting) cause businesses to have to expend excess time and energy to keep a small vocal percentage of customers happy for fear of backlash instead of concentrating on simply making a good or acceptable product that satisfies 95% of customers. I'm reminded of this sometimes when I read tripadvisor reviews where people go off because there is a bug in their room or the desk staff was having a bad day the particular day they arrived.

auctiontheory• 13 years ago

The combination of having a relatively low-skill and undifferentiated job (as a driver) and of having no employment protection (as a contractor) is unfortunate.

I feel for these men, but I think their best choice is to find other employment - this protest will lead nowhere.

philip1209• 13 years ago

I just got back from San Francisco, where I used Uber for the first time (and continued to use it throughout the trip). I talked to all of the drivers and they seemed quite happy - all had been using the service for over a year, and they had been in the limo business for five to eight years each. They said that now all of their business comes through Uber. However, one stated that there has been a huge increase in Uber drivers, thus making it more difficult to keep busy.

I think that some driver backlash is a normal part of growing, and that Uber should maintain strict quality control.

tlrobinson• 13 years ago

I've used Uber a lot over the past 2 and a half years. I've made a point to ask nearly every driver how they liked the service and I can only recall one (out of dozens) giving anything but praise.

So yeah, does not compute, unless things have drastically changed recently.

nostromo• 13 years ago

You know what killed uber for me? Car2Go. That's what these drivers should be worried about.

Wait until it's in SF. This company is going to change the world, even before the driving part is automated.

realdlee• 13 years ago

I've used Car2go a lot and would like to see it in SF, but the tighter parking situation in SF worries me. It's annoying when you're paying by the minute and you have to drive around for 30 minutes looking for parking.

jarek• 13 years ago

car2go, particularly the all-electric networks, is the closest thing we have right now to the electric self-driving roaming taxis that is HN's future of transportation wet dream. There's tons of interesting data in their API about where people go and how people use the cars if you take a bit of effort to mine it. But the coverage on HN is minimal (exactly 26 hits on HNsearch right now) because it's not in SF or NYC or Boston.

salman89• 13 years ago

Are taxi drivers unionized? If so, what we might be seeing here with Uber is the reason why they are unionized.

brunorsini• 13 years ago

I've been a heavy Uber user in SF since they started. I was first in line when they launched Uber X, then Uber cab. I then saw Lyft and Sidecar rise in the city and, honestly, do to Uber in a single month what Uber took about a year to do to the taxi industry. Lyft drivers are more friendly and totally trustworthy. The service is cheaper and there are a bunch of cars all around town. Why use Uber anymore, unless all Lyfts/Sidecars are taken?

To me this is clearly what this is about. Uber is already being disrupted, so they are desperate to lower their costs to be able to compete again. As a guy who literally gave up vehicle ownership just because of these services, all I can say is god bless startup darwinism.

erso• 13 years ago

“They’re running a sweatshop with an app."

Guys riding around in air-conditioned cars all day calling their working conditions a sweatshop.

What if Uber can't actually pay them what they want? Is the solution to force Uber to not fire any drivers, to pay them more than they're able? And by what insane reasoning should they be forced to pay more? Uber isn't owned by the government, and isn't the sole dispatcher around (and certainly not in SF!).

If Uber's business model can't support paying the drivers more than there's nothing that can be done except for the drivers that don't like the conditions to quit. If that means that Uber then goes out of business, so be it. No amount of protesting is going to fix that.

n3rdy• 13 years ago

This is typical when employees try to shake down their employer. They exaggerate their working conditions, and ignore the financial circumstances behind a companies actions.

larsberg• 13 years ago

The major complaint I hear about Uber from Chicago taxi drivers (I like to chat when in a cab) is that Uber only pays them after 10 days. They have to pay weekly rent on their cab, though, which means they can only use Uber when they already have enough money to pay the rent.

Kiro• 13 years ago

Uber's history is filled with so many scandals and I urge everyone to boycott them.

c0mpute• 13 years ago

A very interesting dilemma as a consumer/customer.

I am sure out of the many fired some are legit firings - drivers not respectful or just not good enough. And similarly some who have been short changed by customers giving bad reviews.

So here is my dilemma, wearing the customer hat - if this move by Uber guarantees me that every time I hail a Uber cab, I am guaranteed to get a 4.7 star experience in the minimum (ya sometimes not, but on an average yes). So why wouldn't I want that as a customer?

Now if I wear the hat of a sympathetic human, I can probably see some injustice if I sift through all the firings. So how can we hold Uber accountable?

Being a realist, sometimes one has to understand that many systems don't have equality and maybe in this case the injustice/inequality benefits the Uber customers.

trvlngwlbry• 13 years ago

I was surprised to go through these comments (including with a command-F) and not find mention of the recent news of the Uber driver charged with raping a customer. While that story was pretty damaging to Uber, it was equally--if not more—-damaging to the arguments made by the protesting drivers. The rape incident is exactly the type of thing that Uber is trying to prevent by being so strict with its drivers (though, admittedly, a rape could still have occurred with a highly-rated driver). For PR reasons, Uber understandably does not want to point out that bad event, but it would be pretty compelling if they said something like, "Drivers, even if it was just one driver who ruined it for all of you, your bad behavior has forced our hand. We have to do everything we can to protect our customers."

scott_meade• 13 years ago

I was surprised to see the phrase "Uber Drivers". As I thought I understood it: Uber has no drivers and drivers haver their own companies, simply using Uber as a source of leads for customers. It's like OpenTable for cars, right?

Uber Drivers Protest Outside the Company’s San Francisco Headquarters

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