Lyft and Uber say they will leave Minneapolis if the mayor signs a minimum wage bill for drivers
cnn.com
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.
Great, just get the heck out of here with your gig market profiteering.
Further proof that if they could pay you less (or nothing), they happily would.
Oh no. People might have to use regular taxis.
Or maybe just take a walk, use public transit, ride a bike, or use some other sort of !micromobility!
Public transport in Minneapolis/St. Paul sucks
Coincidence?
What public transport
The one in your heart?
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !micromobility@lemmy.world
Good! Providing a cheap service at the cost of the staff doing the work is not acceptable.
This is all just grandstanding anyway. They may leave, but likely they will just increase their rates.
Exactly. I envision them threatening to leave, but ultimately not taking the revue hit by raising prices for the end users.
I don't agree with profits over everything. I anticipate the public narrative blaming the drivers or politicians for them exiting the market, but in my opinion its their own corporate greed thats pushing them out. This is unfair and people shouldn't be vilified for standing up for workers rights.
It's like when Amazon threatened to leave NY when AOC was campaigning for higher minimum wage over there or whatever it was. I forget the exact details, but the point is that it ended up being a bluff and of course they stayed.
GTFO of Minneapolis if you can't pay your employees you don't deserve to do business here
Someone else will backfill the need.
“Allow us to exploit the labor or we will leave the market”
Same excuse since the dawn of slavery
Ok bye! Nobody needs overpriced services that underpay all employees.
I don't keep up with Uber news, but do they still not consider their drivers to be actual employees, but rather 1099 workers? Either way that company can go to hell.
Lyft too if they have the same attitude.
Good. If business plan relies on exploiting workers, then it's a garbage business plan & deserves to fail.
Call their bluff, they won't leave.
They literally won't. They'll set their rates at "profitable" numbers and leave their computers on, just like everywhere else.
But if the apparatus of the people (government) backs down then it'll be another total failure of government.
Okay bye bye. It’s not like they suddenly take all the drivers and their cars with them. Are they forgetting what business they are in? All they do is match drivers with passengers. Some other scrappy startup can easily fill that gap when they leave. Uber became only big because of first mover advantage and cut throat capitalism. Their tech is not groundbreaking.
Hell, Uber isn't even the only business in the "ride share" category at the moment.
Most cities have at least one other similar business already.
Like Lyft? The other rideshare app in the article?
don't threaten me with a good time
If every business in Ohio left that cried about some laws there wouldn't be any left
They never pass up profit, even if it's less
Considering they are not really any cheaper than taxis, no biggie.
They're much nicer, though. That's why they've been successful.
Conveniently, biking will be a good alternative again once the bike lane isn't full of illegally parked rideshare cars.
(Not from MN but Ubers are a plague for safe city biking where I am)
When scummy companies like that are really pissed off about a new policy, that policy is exactly the right thing to do.
Good fucking riddance.
While I think this should pass, don't hold your breath. Mayor Frey will probably veto it. He's a very moderate, business friendly Democrat and our governor also vetoed a similar bill from the state legislature earlier this year. Right or wrong, they are concerned that any disruption of Uber/Lyft services would be extremely detrimental to people who depend on them. Public transportation in MN is really bad and this is one of the major ways people get around.
Having come from Iowa, the twin cities public transit is more than adequate for most commuters, and I strongly disagree with it being "really bad". I'm honestly aghast at the suggestion that people might use Uber of Lyft with enough regularity to impact day-to-day commuting. My wife elects to use the public buses into downtown from the suburbs out of convenience, even though her work provides downtown parking if she wanted it. Not saying it'll have NO impact, but frankly I don't think it'll have much of one.
Oh no...anyway
And then was born a 3rd competitor.
Ha anything to avoid responsibility
Oh no, they'll have to pay their employees half the cost of living...
... Anyways
Pretty sure that would benefit General Motors and the Petrol giants.
Fewer ways of transportation? More people buying cars! Vroom vroom goes the planet!
That's a weird reaction. Why not just ignore the bill entirely? It's not like a municipality has any viable enforcement mechanism against what amounts to a smartphone app.
That’s a weird takeaway from this.
Govt: we believe that companies that employ people in our community should have to pay the established legal minimum wage.
Companies: we are only able to profit by paying non livable wages.
Lemmy user: yes company, keep exploiting your workers and breaking the laws all businesses have to follow, I mean they can’t really catch you.
“Govt: we believe that companies that employ people in our community should have to pay the established legal minimum wage.”
…Unless they are waiters or waitresses.
I’ll just do the rest of the thread, since it’s the same every time:
Lemmy so efficient, even the flame threads are prefilled for you
It's at least worth pointing out that Uber in particular broke several laws to establish themselves in various markets and never suffered any real punishment.
That is a weird takeaway from this.
Government: We believe that you need to pay your workers more because we feel like it's not enough.
Companies: The workers agreed to the pay when they signed on. If you make us pay them more, we cannot afford to pay the workers without raising our rates to levels that people don't want to pay for.
Government: You will pay them more money.
Companies: We can't afford to do that so we will be pulling out of this area and now they will make exactly $0 and now people have fewer transportation options.
Government: We did it, we successfully raised people's earnings to $0! pats self on back for a job well done
How is this any different than a fast food chain illegally paying someone under minimum wage? Then getting shut down for not acting legally?
If you can follow the laws, you don’t exist.
Everyone else has to play by the labor laws rules. If you can’t afford it, go out of business.
Stupid take, incredibly dumb.
Found the conservative!
They can easily start fining Lyft and Uber.
Sure they do, they can fine them and if they don't comply they can go to state court to get it enforced. Individuals may be able to flout overdue tolls or traffic tickets or whatever for a while, but it's extremely easy to impose a fine on a public corporation.