Lyft and Uber say they will leave Minneapolis if the mayor signs a minimum wage bill for drivers
cnn.com
Lyft and Uber say they will leave Minneapolis if the mayor signs a minimum wage bill for drivers::Lyft and Uber threatened to stop doing business in Minneapolis after the city council adopted a new rule Thursday that would set a minimum wage for rideshare drivers.
Oh no! Businesses whose 'innovation' is doing end runs around labour law, leaving? How sad.
And whose business plan is to use VC money to undercut existing taxi services and drive them out of business so that they can increase prices to a profitable point (and beyond!).
I have little sympathy for the taxi companies. They were terrible at what they did for so long. I can still remember the last two taxi rides I had in my life.
Me stuck a 5 minute drive from work. Every cab company I call wants 40 dollars and only in cash. Why? Because it crossed a town and county line. It took 4 calls before I found one that would take plastic.
A year later going to the airport and I am fighting a migraine. No AC, cab was filthy, ads are blasting, and smelled. Hey can you turn off the advertisements? I can't. Buddy I have a really bad headache can you please turn it off? I can't do that. I will give you five dollars to turn it off. It goes off.
Yeah, it wasn't like the taxi industry was all sunshine and flowers before Uber existed. I cheered them on in the fight for a while before realizing they weren't my champion but just wanted to replace the existing taxis with their own and had to hike up prices eventually because they were losing tons of money in the meantime.
The "labor laws" you reference only exist to give taxi companies monopolies and provide worse experiences for everyone involved
You mean exist to ensure the underpaid actually get the legal minimum wage and to stop exploitive rich people from exploiting poor people?
But it isn't like a lot of taxi companies didn't do the same thing to their workers.
In most parts of the US, restriction of the number of taxis came from issuing a limited number of medallions. The owners of these medallions effectively became rentseekers, renting out their medallions to drivers. The system was rife with abuse.
Part of the main issue now is that a lot of small rentseekers got taken over by two big ones.
Uber drivers don't make less money than taxi drivers. On average, they make about the same.
Taxi: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-TAXI-CAB-Driver-Salary-by-State
Uber: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-UBER-Taxi-Driver-Salary-by-State
Uber drivers aren't "poor" lol.
Uber & Lyft drivers assume all the financial risk and responsibility for their car payment, maintenance, insurance, cleaning, health and dental insurance, etc. You’ll find that once you factor in the externalities the tech companies push into their workers, they don’t necessarily make good money at all.
You pretty much have to game the system to make any money doing it, like I did.
So do pizza delivery drivers and they make great money.
They really don’t. When I was a pizza guy about ten years ago, after fuel & maintenance I would make the equivalent of about $12 USD per hour averaged over a month of full time work.
And one big repair like your power steering pump can ruin the whole month. It’s a great way to “use up” the last of your car before you scrap it, but really not a sustainable job.
Weird because when I was a pizza guy, I made more than I did as a teacher
Well are you factoring in the costs to the automobile like they mentioned? As they say they are a hidden cost and can be quite considerable long term as delivering pizzas adds a lot of wear and tear on a vehicle. When I delivered a LOOOONNNG time ago the costs really did sneak up on me. It was a fun job, and initially I thought it paid well - till I got a couple surprises.
Yes.
Holy fuck, someone as dumb as you is teaching people? Scary.
I'm vastly smarter than you, but no longer a teacher. Pay couldn't keep up.
Well, you did go get a degree that scored you a job that pays less than a pizza driver, so I have to assume that you're actually not very smart at all. ;)
So long and thanks for the laughs. :)
Lol fuck teachers amirite?
No way they should be paid more.
Anyway I'm currently making 6 figures. What do you make?
Ah yes, pizza delivery drivers are well known to be among the highest income earners. Up there with doctors, I believe.
Good time to remind everyone doctors are overpaid due to artificial scarcity, because the ADA lobbies Congress to artificially limit the number of residencies, to keep supply of doctors low
And I didn't say pizza drivers were rich, I said they make a good living. They do.
I made about $20/hr as a delivery driver, take-home, which put me above both what I made as a teacher (roughly 14/hr) and my next 2 jobs (e-learning developer, salesperson -16/18 respectively).
Then why would the company be against paying minimum wage?
Because it's a custom minimum wage that only their companies have to pay, set arbitrarily to make shit like taxis more competitive.
Yellow Cab fucking admitted in NYC that they only pushed the "Uber drivers make lower wages" rhetoric because they couldn't compete, when in fact Uber drivers make what taxi drivers make.
So now Uber just contracts out taxis, and gets their money anyway
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/business/uber-new-york-taxis.html
But at least people have to pay more for rides.
How the hell does a minimum wage make taxis more competitive? That doesn't make any sense. If uber drivers already make more than the minimum wage then a minimum wage would have no effect on that.
You should read the article, because it's only a set minimum for those two companies, not a general min wage.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted. I am in Portland and Uber & Lyft are so popular here that the cabs here mostly do medical transport for non-emergency situations. I use to be a dispatcher here for several years. All cabs did were go to various hospitals and doctor offices.
People here really, really do not like their beliefs challenged by reality
well now it feels like I didn't really leave reddit.
Still better than the 'gig economy'. If making worker's lives more precarious makes your life better, fuck your life.
The gig economy is less precarious for the people that choose it because it fits their schedule. That's why they choose it. Jobs aren't exactly hard to get right now - they'd do something else if they wanted to.
Also uber drivers don't make less money than taxi drivers. On average, they make about the same.
Taxi: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-TAXI-CAB-Driver-Salary-by-State
Uber: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-UBER-Taxi-Driver-Salary-by-State
That just compares salary, what about benefits?
Not to mention employee protection/rights laws that don't always apply to contractors
And the wear and tear they are putting on personal vehicles instead of company vehicles.
"choose" as in they all had a choice between a dependable job with benefits and a gig is a bit of an leap. Sure it's the case for some but most certainly not all.
I'd love to see your citation that most Uber drivers are somehow forced into it, somehow, as their only employment option.
Also I'd love to hear your reasoning how, for these same people who can't work other jobs, they're better off without a means to earn money.
Do taxi drivers typically have to own/maintain/insure their own cars? I've always thought those were all paid for by the taxi company.
Usually not but if you put a dent in it you get the terrible one in the worst areas for a while as punishment. Assuming of course they don't just cancel your shift. That is why it was important to always note the scratches. I put a bumper scratch in once and was ordered to do the inspection line up. 2 hours of sitting there not making any money. If I leave I have no job the next day. Ended up quitting that week.
No but they also don't have to do any of the other shit drivers do, like get qualify for medallions etc.
Both jobs have their hidden costs.
There's nothing preventing Uber, Lyft, or any other company from charging realistic rates to pay drivers a minimum wage. But if Uber or Lyft do this, their rates end up being more than traditional taxis, so the question is why
Uber and lift drivers make more than minimum wage, and make basically the same income as taxi drivers, so I'm not sure what you're even saying here.
They cost less than taxis because they have less overhead.
If that was the case then this bill would be of no concern to them. In reality, only some drivers make more than minimum wage, not all
It's an additional charge just for those companies, not an actual minimum wage.
Read the article.
Read the article 😑
Nothing in this article disagrees with what I'm saying
The Minneapolis City Council is trying to create a new minimum wage for drivers. Uber and Lyft drivers are not "already making" this. What are you reading?
I didn't say they were making the custom-built minimum designed solely to impact their companies, but rather that they make over the actual minimum wage
Ok
Don't let the door hit you on your way out.
If your business can't afford to pay a living wage it shouldn't exist.
Uber was notorious for moving into and operating in certain cities illegally.
*all cities
Not all, they were kicked out from Hungary - although that was less a victory of workers' rights rather than that of the taxi driver union.
I noticed when I visited Vancouver, BC there were no uber's or lyft's available, however - uber eats was available. And most restaurants I walked past had uber eats signs in the windows saying they did delivery. And this was in like 2018
Every argument in this thread is basically taxi protectionism.
I mean, I see you personally talking about taxis a lot
I don't like protectionism.
Kinda just sound like a conspiracy nut finding arguments where there are none with people who are just talking about the article
That's certainly a take.
You're like... The only one talking about taxis, everyone else is talking about worker protection
That's nonsensical, since workers drive for both.
Taxi companies tend to be smaller, more locally owned businesses with actual employees instead of "contractors." Why would we *not side with them?
Edit: missed an important word
Yup. And now the founder is rich when he really should be in jail.
Good.
Bye bye Lyft. Bye bye Uber.
Cool, Columbus Ohio’s bus system offers a subsidized version of Uber and while it sucks in service area the idea and price both make perfect sense for Minneapolis to adopt.
Rideshare apps aren’t the solution, effective and adaptive public transportation is. Public transit based rideshare is a great way to fill in the gaps of bus and train systems and to push them to fill their own gaps.
And when all else fails, unionized taxi services.
Sometimes Silicon Valley feels like the monorail man
Just don't look up what they're planning to build for the airport connection in San Jose...
Proper ride sharing would be awesome. It's love if I could come to work by using an app to find someone going the same way as me and getting a lift.
That is what I am hoping for. I don't know how many times I see an empty bus or would save so much time if I could just get from one local station to another instead of going all the way to a main hub and back. The ride share companies are collecting all this data on where populations really need to go. If we could somehow use them for last leg of distance, route bridges, and filling in lines that are over served.
I am not sure what exactly the best way to structure this but we do have policy experts so that is there job. Some form of public-private partnership.
https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY
I see no down side here. Taxi unions existed long before Uber and Lyft undercut the hell out of them.
Those taxi unions had a monopoly in the areas they served (which was far smaller than Uber and Lyft's service area) and their prices reflected that.
If Uber and Lyft leave there's one thing sure to happen: a lot more people dying from being hit by drunk drivers.
This isn't a good thing any way you cut it.
dog what
dude there are like... other rideshare apps
and taxis still exist
and Minneapolis has an effective (for America) transit system
there are so many options in place before breaking the law
and if paying a living wage is not possible for Uber or Lyft, maybe they shouldn't be in business
Honestly exactly this, if a business is impossible to exist without exploitation then it straight up shouldn't exist, and if that means our economy can't exist, it needs to be rethought so goods and services exist to be goods and services, and not a money making scam.
That all means nothing when some night in the coming weeks Joe 6 pack walks out of the bar after a few to many, tries to get an Uber, a Lyft, both fail. Looks at his car he was gonna leave there, and risks it.
This isn't an acceptance of the unfair work conditions, it's simply an outcome that WILL happen if the cord is cut all at once.
Wage slavery is an unacceptable form of drunk driving prevention.
You're doing a terrible disservice to those people who were, and still are, actually enslaved by using that term.
Yeah but the comment wouldn't be quite as snippy without the hyperbolic phrase.
Good.
Move out of the way for employers willing to follow the law.
Also side note, why don't they already have a minimum wage mandated by nationwide law?! Do people not get basic human rights over there? What the actual fuck is wrong with these people?
If you took away our minimum wage we would topple the bloody government, and that's coming from England where we hardly get excited over anything. But, that would be an unprecedentedly evil, evil thing to do, with gigantic wide ranging negative effects across the whole nation the likes of which we've never seen.
We do have nationwide minimum wage. These companies get around it though because they drivers are "contract workers" not employees of the company. In every meaningful way, this is bullshit. It let's them not be required to pay the workers though.
This mindset of catering to companies is infuriating. They took the risk creating the business, if they are no longer able to afford to pay wages or have competitive prices they don't deserve to remain open. That's the whole fucking point of the free market. Let these companies fail, the country and the economy will recover and new companies that fill current niches and needs will pop up.
These companies bled investor money for years acquiring market share with their long term viability plan being that self driving cars were around the corner. They've been waiting to fire all the drivers but they got grifted by Elon types into thinking self driving tech was imminent.
They didn't think they'd still have to pay people. Those salaries were supposed to be a temporary loss leader
There's no way the plan was ever to actually create a fleet of high tech cars they own and maintain themselves, which depreciate over time and eventually have to be replaced. Surely that was just a lie to get the money.
I don't think there was exclusively one solitary sort of fuckery afoot
If y'all can pay a living wage, y'all can't do business. Tired of this shit.
Oh no, there will be small local taxi companies instead of some random multi-million dollar corporations, how bad! And people won't have to download their trashy apps that are filled with trackers.
I actually think the app was the best part of Uber (not necessarily the Uber app, but the concept). In my city it used to be annoying to catch a taxi; you either had to line up at a rank, or call and wait and hope that your taxi turned up. Apps allowed you to order a car to wherever you were - normally with just a few minutes notice. I rarely use either now but I believe that taxis have comparable options now.
I prefer apps too, but I don't want to install corporate spyware on my phone, just to call a taxi. Thankfully both Uber and Lyft have pretty good web apps, and never have to let them touch my phone.
Oh no!
Anyway...
I think we should seize all of Lyft and Ubers assets and use them to construct actual public transportation in USA
What assets? All they have is debt and maybe some servers. I guess the app and brand has some value, but only to another ride share company.
They have corporate employees beyond the drivers. They likely have offices and such.
They likely rent, so the most you are getting is a fee.
If we're talking total fantasyland, I suppose put those employees to work building a government backed alternative or an open platform to allow smaller companies?
Suppose you had a centralized federated system where states or municipalities or even companies could have their own drivers but it's a common app?
Edit to add you could also have both driver and passenger rate each other and allow both to filter by rating, lower ratings would naturally pay more or less to compensate for the service. I bet in cities you'd have luxury versions of the same services all from the same app, but also cheap shitty services too.
The existence of Uber and Lyft does not prevent the government from doing this. If we are paying people to build and maintain this process we may as well hire people to do so. Taking over Uber would lead to the best employees leaving for other tech companies.
I think you're underestimating how many people want to work for the government for the perceived benefits. I'm saying they have the stuff already set up, in fantasyland it would be a fairly smooth transition.
They don't own the cars, they don't hire employees. We'd be left with an app? Some servers? We don't need that stuff to run a decent public transportation service.
love this idea. Wish I knew how to do that lol
Better off seizing taxis and the cars they own, but ultimately, why would we do that? Pass legislation to make them comply
So the law works.
Fuck uber. Fuck lyft. We'd be better off if they didn't exist. Destroyed livelihoods so silicon valley could seem like they were doing something and not just thieving from people.
Uber prices in some cities are absolutely insane. Seattle for example: Right now a ride to the airport from where I am is 13 miles / 25 minute drive. Uber is quoting $51 at 10am on a Friday. Minneapolis' new minimum wage would only be $20.47. Even if the driver came all the way from the airport, that would still only be $41. Somehow I doubt all that money is going to the drivers right now.
yeah and fucking forget getting away from an airport or train station with one - I think it was like near $90 for a lyft from LAX to my friends house within LA. Only like a 30 minute drive too. Which, where I live a 30 minute ride is like $20 or $30 ish.
In my city the government used a private company to build the rail to the airport and then have them exclusive running of it for a few decades. It makes sense to take a train from the airport but if you have two or more people it's cheaper to take a taxi to the nearest hub and catch a train from there on.
Oh no..... Anyway....
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Lyft and Uber threatened to stop doing business in Minneapolis after the city council adopted a new rule Thursday that would set a minimum wage for rideshare drivers.
In recent years, states and cities have attempted to pass legislation regarding the growing “gig economy,” or freelance work through apps like Uber and Grubhub, but have generally met with fierce opposition.
Lyft, according to a statement sent to CNN Thursday, said the bill would be detrimental to drivers, who would ultimately earn less, “because prices could double and only the most wealthy could still afford a ride.”
“This ordinance stands to significantly impact our city in terms of worker protections, public safety, disability rights, and transportation mode shift goals,” he said.
In recent years, states have attempted to pass legislation regarding the growing “gig economy,” or freelance work through apps like Uber and Grubhub.
In June, New York City announced a new minimum pay-rate for app food delivery workers amid the rise in use of services like Uber Eats and DoorDash since the pandemic.
The original article contains 587 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Would hurt drivers and only the wealthy could drive… let me fix that too it will cut into all my profits and I won’t be able to overcharge common people as easily and simultaneously commit wage theft against the driver.
Bye! If you can’t pay a living wage you can’t afford to be in business.
Hopefully this turns out better than the statewide bill that the governor vetoed earlier this year. It looks like they went with the same mileage payments, which is a good thing. The statewide bill was vetoed due to handicapped transportation services in MN having partnerships with Uber. I wrote to the governor about it, this is going to a committee to quote "find the best solution". Unfortunately I don't have high hopes to see it reintroduced. Gig workers need a minimum standard of labor protections.
Edit: I missed the fact that this is a twin cities ordinance. Fucking good, the metro council should be expanding transportation services to make uber irrelevant.
Hold out a little hope. Democrats have both houses and the governor. And uncharacteristically they're actually moving some shit though. We got weed legalization, a huge investment in housing, and some good public transit is in the works.
Good. Leave.
Bye Felipe
Probably a very unpopular thing to say: It would be interesting to see a middleman-free, decentralized version of Lyft/Uber where payments and ride-hailing are done with crypto and blockchain/smart contracts, driver ID's using using DID's, anonymized on-chain using homomorphic encryption. The hardest problem that I forsee with that tech is with dispute resolution. The idea stems from the opinion that the gig economy is great but the real problem (in matters not related to conflict resolution) is that the middleman takes a huge cut of the fare in exchange for doing almost nothing.
I'd be curious to see which would be more practical: a decentralized version of Lyft/Uber powered by blockchain, or an employee-owned version of Lyft/Uber where workers keep all their earnings and pay a small portion for administrative fees to keep the app running.
Admittedly I'm always skeptical of blockchain's ability to actually solve problems. But maybe it would have fewer infrastructural costs? Who knows
Great points!
The reason I jump to recommending crypto rather than a co-op (I'm actually a libertarian-socialist and am a big fan of co-ops) is that, unless you make it impossible for people to be corrupt through public ledgers and DAO's, they eventually WILL take the opportunity to be corrupt.
If implemented correctly, crypto can be harnessed as a technology that makes corruption IMPOSSIBLE.
IMO, it gets a bad rap because of bad actors and the public's misinterpretation of the power structures of sketchy, centralized implementations of the tech (like Luna and FTX). However, a truly decentralized, open source chain could definitely be the backbone to a truly trust-less, truly decentralized version of this. If you really look into it, the more decentralized a crypto project, the more it can be trusted.
For me, the best trust metric that seems to hold strong over the years is initial token allocation.
This is just a cab, with extra steps. You get a cab, you pay the driver no middle man.
Not really! What about reputation score, etc?
You could actually say that about any business that accepts credit cards or digital payment at the point of sale. Try it.
Two points:
Good riddance
Bye have a beautiful time! 👋
sup Security Officer Peña
I've never used or worked for either so legitimate question for anyone who has worked with such, what's the split on a ride between the app owners and the drivers? I should hope that the driver takes the majority since they're the one taking the risk, time, maintinance, stress and all that. My general understanding is that these services tend to be cheaper than a traditional taxi but less regulated so I get there's contention there.
Basically I'm hoping that the drivers aren't in one of those 'living off the tips' situations like servers in resturaunts while the companies vacume up all the fees.
The driver certainly doesn't take in the majority. There are a bunch of articles online regarding Uber pay, and it's of course variable based on how much and where you drive. It seems that in most places it pays at least $20/hr, but that probably includes tips and is before car maintenance expenses (and insurance: most states now require a different car insurance policy if you drive for ride-sharing now).
They can be cheaper than a traditional taxi because they handle all the dispatch back-end that traditional taxi companies have, and of course they push maintenance expenses onto their drivers. But their special sauce is in their congestion pricing algorithm, which hikes up rates during periods of "high demand". I've gotten off of planes in the middle of the night before, only to find Uber doubled my fare to the hotel due to "congestion". (In reality, I bet they didn't have enough drivers at 3 am). So I searched for the number of a cab company and saved some money.
Taxi companies who want to compete with Uber should just band together and release a nationwide directory app that let's users phone or text a local cab company that is open 24/7.
Uber was cheaper than Taxi services as it ran at a loss for years trying to out compete the competition on pricing so that it could get a monopoly on the market and get people used to their service. Now they are raising prices again how that most people are used to using their service and other companies are struggling.
Taxi companies who want to compete with Uber should take up more of Uber's model, and have cars even beginning to approach the quality of an Uber.
In the beginning when Uber moves into a new region, they pay drivers well to get drivers onboard, and charge riders little to get riders onboard. This also makes competitors like taxis less attractive and makes Uber really popular, making it hard for the city to push back.
So drivers might be getting more than riders are paying, with Uber subsidizing the entire thing! If your city is in this phase, it's great for riders and drivers.
Once they're established though, and the competitors have been pushed out, and people learned that Uber is awesome and cheap compared to taxis, they start raising prices and reducing driver pay. To keep enough availability they need to hire new drivers, which means their quality standards drop, and they use increasingly creative strategies down to debt slavery (desperate drivers lease/rent their car - which can be their only vehicle and which they may need to get to work or exist in general in a car centric area - from Uber, at "very favorable" rates. But then they have to keep driving for Uber or lose the car.)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/05/uber-loan-program-debt
They also exploit that most people don't realize the true cost of a car. They only look at gas, not the wear and maintenance of the car. And if you look at what Uber pays, deduct only gas, and consider the rest income, it looks like a good deal, while in reality they might be selling their car to Uber one kilometer at a time and working effectively for free.
As I understand it there isn't a direct share of the ride price or anything like that. The amounts Uber pays to drivers and charges from riders are decoupled to the point where even way it's calculated (e.g. actual distance vs. scheduled distance) could differ between driver and rider. The driver side fare system is different per city/region.
Generally the driver gets the majority of the ride cost, but their earnings vary a lot by region/time. If you're just asking if it's a good job, then the answer is a resounding no. I did it for a few months a couple years ago, and I have a friend who has done it as his full time job for the past 6 years or so. No change that Uber/Lyft makes is ever designed around benefiting the driver. You can safely assume that any new policy is going to make you earn less than you were before.
At the end of the day, you are not fairly compensated for vehicle wear and tear, fuel consumption is not factored properly for all rides, certain arbitrary locations pay more or less and require unpaid relocating to actually land rides, etc. The best is when you take a 2 hour trip only to find out after drop off that you aren't allowed to pick up new rides in that area and that you need to spend nearly the same amount of time getting back to an area you're qualified to drive in. I think that one at least has been mostly resolved since I drove years ago, but you get the idea...
So sounds a lot like the world of a pizza driver, which I have done that. No personal interest in doing so since I have a solid thing already but the concept of the freelance 'work when you feel' being more prevalent is I figgure a net good for some people. Particularly I think of the retired and board, or someone who wants a couple extra bucks for holidays, things like that.
"Not allowed to pick up/qualified to drive there"? That just seems bizzare and pointless...
I don't know if it's changed since my last attempt at it, but there were two separate reasons for not being able to pick up at specific areas. I was limited to my state for pick-ups, but could drop off anywhere. I also live about 20 minutes from a major city in a neighboring state... so you can see how that breaks the system instantly. It was probably a related to a local law, but that's just how shit worked.
The other reason was due to an airport agreement that I'm sure has since been undone. An airport about an hour north of me only allowed regular taxis. Lyft and Uber were not allowed to operate within about a 15 minute radius of their location. This, of course only affected pick-ups, so dropping someone off there resulted in about 30 minutes (15 getting out of the congested drop off area and 15 actually driving) of unpaid time. And that's assuming that you can find a ride the instant that you breach the barrier. Which you won't...
Good.
The mayor will unfortunately veto this legislation.
The joy of the big company moving into a limited matked, subsidise the loss until the competition leaves/folds and the people are left with the only game in town. Unfortunatly nothing new there, that's pretty well the M/O of every big chain. In my state it seems there has been a Dollar General popping up in every other small town doing the same thing.
They won't, unfortunately.
it's time for a decentralized unionized taxi app
Companies that threaten to leave as an attempt to influence legislation should be immediately seized and liquidated
But minimum wage = good??!! What happed??!!!! Hahaha idiots