Minneapolis mayor vetoes minimum wage bill for Lyft, Uber drivers: ‘An inexcusable betrayal of Minneapolis workers’

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 455 points –
Minneapolis mayor vetoes minimum wage bill for Lyft, Uber drivers: ‘An inexcusable betrayal of Minneapolis workers’
fortune.com

Minneapolis mayor vetoes minimum wage bill for Lyft, Uber drivers: ‘An inexcusable betrayal of Minneapolis workers’::The city’s mayor nixed minimum wages for ride-hailing drivers in a move one city council member called “an inexcusable betrayal of Minneapolis workers.”

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Wow, he negotiated a contract with Uber only. Lyft drivers fucked. Drivers will probably flee to Uber for higher guarantees. Will Lyft compete to retain their talent or continue to pay the minimum? Or will they drop out of the city entirely and leave Uber as the de facto monopoly in drive sharing?

Mayor pretty much gave a middle finger to its people with the veto. I wonder how much the mayor was wined and dined to ignore 8 months of work by the city and consultants

LMFAO, it's a verbal contract bro, they aren't required to do anything. They won't do anything. This was just purely fucking over the people.

Verbals binding. Hope there's audio of that conversation.

And any gumption to hold them to their word. Both of them.

Sweet summer child...

No, they're right. Verbal contracts are binding in a court of law. Now, Uber having a fuckton of money to make it impossible to enforce is a different thing altogether.

Someone should show the mayor that you can't treat large portions of your constituents like they're trash.

But they can. gestures broadly to everything

I thought Uber said they would leave altogether if they passed that law. If the mayor didn't veto then wouldn't that lead to a lot of job loss?

I dont see how it can be called a "job" if it doesn't pay even minimum wage

If they left, others would take their place. In this situation, only ride share mega companies win, and at the direct expense of those at the very bottom.

I used to ride share drive part time. I don't think there is anyone who does strictly Uber or strictly Lyft. You do both to get more money.

Plenty of people in the UK are strictly Uber as it works like a normal cab firm here, ride sharing isn't really a thing.

In Denmark Uber was told they can't operate, you need a license to drive a taxi so the amount of taxis match with the amount of people - if there are to many taxis everyone can't make a living wage.

Uber could register as a normal taxi company, but they were not interested in that.

Funny thing for the short period they were operating most the drivers didn't register to pay taxes of the income, but tax department just asked Uber for a list of drivers and their income.

if there are to many taxis everyone can’t make a living wage

Why aren't there similar restrictions to the amount of workers in various sectors? Doesn't having too many people doing IT support dilute IT support worker wages? Apply this logic to ANY individual contributor role.

The actual end result of limited taxi licenses is that the licenses get monopolized by bigger businesses who do not provide "living" wages to their employees rather than protecting individual taxi drivers. The owner makes a TON of money and the taxi drivers just do ok.

Try and find some salary data for say NYC medallion taxi drivers and compare that to the surrounding area cost of living. Taxi drivers who work 40 hours usually make below what i'd consider living wage for the area.

Bad journalism that doesn't explain the current state of things for the drivers. Not everyone is up on the sanctioned exploitation of drivers.

What are they getting now and how does this improve things?

Don't worry! The reader can find that in a different article.

Sourcing this critical information is an exercise left to the reader

Clickbait title.

In his veto message, Frey wrote he “secured a commitment from Uber” that drivers picking up passengers in Minneapolis or driving within the city will make the city’s minimum wage of $15 an hour. The company also committed to paying Uber drivers at least $5 for any trip in the metro area.

This context means nothing. They made a law protecting workers, the mayor vetoed it. Uber is much happier with this. And Lyft, who made no agreement, is ecstatic!

Yay corporations!

Uber is happy because they will know drivers will flee to their platform for higher guarantees. Whether Lyft will remain in the city or compete is something we will find out.

Also all people taking Ubers and Lyfts benefit, as they are cheaper. Yay poor people!

Also Uber and Lyft drivers will get more dates and already make above the min wage, based on existing data. Yay Uber and Lyft drivers!

Can I have some drugs too?

Sure! Where do you live.

Don't drive high tho.

Please provide sources.

How many hours are they driving? Oh wait, you just assumed they were all only driving 38 hours a week, lmfao, sweet summer child.

I want to know how many miles it took to get to that 40k. Depreciation, maintenance, fuel, and (in my opinion the worst part) having strangers in your car constantly.

It's fortunate that Uber is famous for following the rules.

Not a clickbait title, the original bill covered all ride-sharing. He only struck at deal with Uber, and Uber only struck a deal so bills like this would spread and lead to them having to pay fair wages in other cities. He played the role of a corporate patsy and threw a hard-won citizens-supported bill in the trash in exchange for a small face-saving gesture.

Out governor also vetoed a state-wide ridesharing bill earlier this year. The title includes none of the nuance, and a lot of inflammatory language. Reads like clickbait to me

A verbal agreement from a corporation doesn't mean shit. Unless there is the risk of financial punishment they won't comply the second it becomes inconvenient

“Don’t worry, bro. Just shake my hand. This deal is 100% legit, bro. We promise we’ll pay up. Just trust us.”

This dude did the absolute bare minimum in typical politician fashion.

Secured a commitment from Uber. Which is to say ‘we said whatever ensured you would veto the bill and will pull the rug as soon as nobody is paying close attention’

Sounds like a reasonable trade-off, likely at the expense of ride prices though. I hope Minneapolis has a viable public alternative for those who used the rideshares to get around and might be priced out by the increase, whenever it arrives

You know what's better than easily broken "agreements"? Actual fucking laws.