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Businesses The Almighty Buck Transportation Technology

Uber, Lyft Propose $21/Hour Minimum Wage For Drivers After Wave Of Protests (cbslocal.com) 103

Uber and Lyft, the two biggest rideshare companies, are telling their drivers they are willing to compromise with a proposal that includes a minimum wage of $21 per hour. From a report: The new proposal comes after days of protests that brought a caravan of rideshare drivers through San Francisco and ended in Sacramento Wednesday. The demonstrating drivers said they are demanding a living wage and pushing for Assembly Bill 5, which would classify rideshare drivers as employees instead of independent contractors. Lyft sent a message to its drivers, asking them to talk their legislators out of the bill, saying it could cause the company to "offload" or layoff hundreds of thousands of drivers. The message from Lyft also told drivers that AB5 could cost customers more money and make them wait longer for a car. In lieu of the legislation, Lyft said it is willing to compromise with drivers, promising they would get paid at least $21 dollars per hour, receive some benefits and also get their voices heard within the company.
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Uber, Lyft Propose $21/Hour Minimum Wage For Drivers After Wave Of Protests

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  • Sure! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday August 29, 2019 @02:10PM (#59138032)

    But only counting the few minutes where there's actually somebody in the car.

    The average ride is about 6 miles with an average cost of 2$ per mile, let's say 15 minutes actual driving for those 12$ and the driver gets 5.25$ for that which is 21$ an hour.

    So the company gets more than the driver and they don't even own the car.

    Looking forward to the bean-counters ripping me to shreds.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      I've been averaging about $25 an hour driving for Uber and Lyft in the Portland area. Some days more, some days less. Sure, there's gas, wear and tear on the car, payroll tax, and other costs, but even after that, I probably net about $18 an hour or so, if not more. There's no other job I can think of that anyone can do and get started almost immediately, has a completely flexible schedule, is almost completely unsupervised, and pays this much. Not to mention, easy and fun. You force minimum wage onto th
      • You don't need to drive during certain busy hours to get better money? I've heard a lot of people say that they only make serious money if they want to drive during rush hour.
      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        " Sure, there's gas, wear and tear on the car, payroll tax, and other costs, but even after that, I probably net about $18 an hour or so, if not more"

        Probably? Put it into figures or shut the fuck up. If you can't calculate your costs (like ALL BUSINESSES DO), they you have no fucking clue what you are talking about.
        • The wear and tear part can't be accurately calculated. The most common thing that accountants do is linear depreciation. The way it works is this:

          Car costs $20,000. When you buy it, your net assets don't change (you gave up 20k cash, got a 20k car in return.) Car is estimated to last 10 years, and have an estimated salvage value of $5,000. Linear means you record an expense of $1,500 per year on your balance sheet.

          Here's where the problem in that lies: The salvage value depends on the condition of the car w

          • by ksw_92 ( 5249207 )

            The wear and tear part can't be accurately calculated.

            The IRS puts a pretty good number on it: $0.58/mile

            Depreciation also requires a non-business-use discount to be applied. Unless you're using your car exclusively for your ride-share business you can't claim full depreciation losses.

            Ride-share drivers need to keep that figure in the back of their head when they're out conducting their business. I've seen a number of rider-share drivers "circulate" to get pings. That type of driving is an expense but it seems people forget that...

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I don't drive Uber, so I wouldn't know, but it sounds reasonable? The wear & tear and insurance are fixed costs more or less, and become less important the more you drive. If you drive 5h a day, 5x a week, 50 weeks a year, that's $6250 for insurance, gas, and wear & tear. Insurance is what, $1K, car maintenance $100-150 for an oil change, 4x a year because you drive a lot? Wear & tear is a bit fuzzy because it depends on your car, but if you drive like a 5-6 yr-old Civic or whatever, the car is
          • Re:Sure! (Score:5, Insightful)

            by dpidcoe ( 2606549 ) on Thursday August 29, 2019 @04:45PM (#59138670)

            car maintenance $100-150 for an oil change, 4x a year because you drive a lot?

            I'd double that number to cover things like tires, brakes, air filters, repairs and replacements when stuff wears out... Might be wise to budget for the incidental broken windshield or fender bender as well. Plus opportunity cost while the car is in the shop.

        • Re:Sure! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by dpidcoe ( 2606549 ) on Thursday August 29, 2019 @04:41PM (#59138652)

          You're saying your make $18 an hour, so that means you only have $5 an hour of gas, wear and tear, insurance, etc? I have a hard time believing that.

          The gas part seems reasonable at least. With gas at $2.50, an average city speed of 30mph, and a city mpg of 15 you get $5 worth of gas. Say insurance is $1000/year and you drive 1000-2000hours, that's another ~75 cents an hour. Wear and tear is a little trickier. Maybe budget another 2k/year for additional maintenance and repairs resulting from the job?

          I'd say all in all it's probably closer to $10 rather than $5 as far as hourly costs to the driver

        • Well you would certainly know more than the guy actually doing the job.

      • that anyone can do

        One thing I'll say about Uber: the rating system works. Any driver [even remotely worth their shit] wil attest to that... and another thing even a semi-mediocre driver also knows all too well: not just anyone can do it. (Feel free to consider yourself called out... and long-live the fucking rating system!).

        • Uber's star-based rating system is misleading. Everyone I know gives 5 stars for average/mediocre service. 'Cuz Uber punishes drivers who get less, and most passengers are not flaming assholes. The average driver is average, not "5 star". Short of writing to the company there's no proper way for a passenger to indicate actually-good driving.

          • I agree this rating system is nonsense. Everywhere you go it's only a five star rating is acceptable anything less is failure.Is that really realistic? I normally rate people five stars because I don't have a problem. Once I was picked up by a guy, nice, nice car, clean expect there was obvious cigarette smoke. This bothered me and when I got home my wife said I smelled of smoke so the smoke was significant. So I gave him four stars in the clean category. I felt bad about this, but really it did bothered me
          • by hawk ( 1151 )

            the only way to fix this is by "weighting" each rating by the average/distribution of the person rating--and to weight *that* by its consistency with other raters (and that might, in fact, mean a negative weight for the lunatic that gives a low rating for excellent serviced and high for poor, or for those that try to pressure the diver for ratings)

      • If you don't have a spreadsheet telling you how much you are making w wear and tear and gas costs, you are losing money.
      • Payroll tax alone (15.2%) will eat $3.80 of that rate. Are you saying that gas, car wear and tear, and other costs are less than $3? Assuming your vehicle costs are just $0.20 per mile (about 40% of the Federal deduction), you're driving less than 15 miles per hour...
    • ALL miles + tolls.

      And all means

      Returning from an long run back to your base area.

      Airport wait time

      Driving to an pick up

      • ALL miles + tolls.

        Tolls?

        Is that a big thing where you live? I've rarely ever seen tolls charged for roads outside of a few bridges here and there.

        But around here not common to have to drive on anything requiring a toll.

  • by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Thursday August 29, 2019 @02:17PM (#59138062)

    If Uber and Lyft are against it I'm for it. Their business model depends on drivers working for very little while artificially low rates kill the competing cab services.

    • by chuckugly ( 2030942 ) on Thursday August 29, 2019 @02:22PM (#59138086)
      What we should do is make it illegal for ride share services to force private citizens to drive for them.
      • by bblb ( 5508872 )

        In what way are private citizens being "forced" to drive for them? If you don't want to do it or don't believe it's profitable enough to be worth your time, you are in no way obligated or required to do it.

        • 1/3 of working Americans are now in the gig economy. I find it hard to believe that this many people would be doing such a low profit job if they were looking at anything else other than walfare as an alternative.
          • by Puls4r ( 724907 )
            And yet the fact remains - they choose to do it. No one is forcing them.
            • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Thursday August 29, 2019 @02:52PM (#59138228)

              And yet the fact remains - they choose to do it. No one is forcing them.

              If your choice only choices are starving or eating out of the trash, is it really fair to argue that there's really a choice?

              While some people do, most people do not do gig economy jobs like driving for Uber/Lyft because they want to. They realize that over the long term gig jobs are a losing proposition, they just don't see any other options.

              • by mark-t ( 151149 )
                I would suggest that low paying gig jobs are a symptom of a deeper underlying issue, and not the problem itself.
                • It's really only a symptom of people flowing into fill new demands for labor after automation and off-shoring removed a previous set of unskilled or low-skilled jobs. The only difference is that the "gig" economy is more flexible than the previous factory jobs that were typically 9-to-5 types.

                  There's some concern if someone is just moving from gig job to gig job their whole life, but not everyone is capable of learning the kinds of skills necessary for high-skill labor. It's far better that there are gig
              • by ghoul ( 157158 )

                If people are really that useless what makes them think they should be car-owners? If they dont want to use public transport and instead want to own cars they cant afford, only fair they be exploited for their stupidity.
                I always call Uber a charitable organization engaged in mass teaching of Math. The only people who sign up for Uber are those who cant do Math. Once they drive a few months and realize after wear and tear and maintenance they are making less than minimum wage they learn Math in the school of

              • Yes, that's still a choice. The choice is to work for Uber/Lyft instead of any of the other jobs they could find. Or being on welfare.

                Just because the alternative is poverty doesn't mean there isn't a choice. Otherwise you can justify theft because poor people don't have a choice.

                • You think there are sane people who make a conscientious choice to be in poverty rather than get the lowest paying job they possibly can? I can't justify poor people committing theft, but it is very easy to see why people on welfare grow and grow every year. They used to have to come off welfare with a minimum wage job, now they're fighting for gig jobs. I don't blame people at all for being on welfare in either case.
                  • by Shotgun ( 30919 )

                    You think there are sane people who make a conscientious choice to be in poverty rather than get the lowest paying job they possibly can?

                    Think? Dude, I'm related to them. Believe it or not, other people are not you. Other people have value systems that are not yours. Get out of your bubble and learn that. My father PREFERRED to be poor and spend his day fishing. It was a conscious decision on his part.

                    • The fact that you are here demonstrates that we are not talking about the same thing. Unless your dad raised you by making money on illegal activity, he found a way to do some job to make enough to live. What forced him to do that?
                  • by bblb ( 5508872 )

                    People are on welfare for only one reason... an inability or unwillingness to work, period. In this economy, the only thing standing in the way of employment is pride. Even if you have to work two jobs and spend 16 hours a day working you can absolutely avoid being on welfare. You can drive for uber and work for walmart or work at mcdonalds and taco bell. The idea that there's simply no jobs to be had is just something lazy people say to justify being lazy.

                    And honestly, at this point you just sound like a b

                • by Anonymous Coward

                  Otherwise you can justify theft because poor people don't have a choice.

                  It is justified, there's even folklore called Robin Hood to prove it.

                • La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.

                  In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

                  - Anatole France, Le Lys Rouge [The Red Lily] (1894)

              • by Shotgun ( 30919 )

                If your choice only choices are starving or eating out of the trash,

                And you want to eliminate the choice of driving for Uber. Venezuela called. Said they'd like to keep the pets they had to roast over a trash fire, and would prefer that you not create a run on that market.

            • by Anonymous Coward

              You have a choice-- you do what I say, or I kill you. Remember it is STILL a choice.

          • by bblb ( 5508872 )

            Regardless, you're failing to identify where ride share services are forcing private citizens to drive for them, which was your original claim. There is absolutely no coercive force driving people into these positions, it is 100% by choice... there is no obligation and no requirement to drive for these services and there is no penalty for not driving for these services. Welfare or minimum wage work at a fast food job may legitimately be the only alternative means of income for a small percentage of these dr

            • Any person working for Uber because they can't find another job and will starve without it is being forced to work for Uber by societal forces.
              • by Shotgun ( 30919 )

                Any person working for Uber because they can't find another job and will starve without it

                More mindless hysterics. You know what the number one health problem of American "poor" is obesity. Right? No one is starving in the US, except by choice.

                is being forced to work for Uber by societal forces.

                What mechanism do these nefarious "societal forces" use? Dangle Iphones in front of people?

                • Your first point doesn't matter. Welfare is a bad thing, people should use it less not more. Take away welfare and immediately see people dying in the street.
              • by bblb ( 5508872 )

                As noted... virtually no one is starving in this country and Uber and Lyft both require vehicle ownership which, in and off itself, opens the vehicle owner up to an array of other jobs whether it means commuting to find better opportunity or delivering pizza. Regardless, societal forces =/= "ride share services" so even if your absurd assertion were true, which it isn't, that still doesn't equate to ride share services forcing anyone to work for them.

                Just more hyperbole and hysterics... try again with a rea

                • Virtually no one is starving because there is welfare! Remove welfare and see what happens.
                  • by bblb ( 5508872 )

                    Virtually no one is starving because low cost high calorie food is available everywhere throughout this country... Literally hundreds of thousands of people without income or housing that aren't on welfare manage to successfully feed themselves for pennies a day. Starvation simply isn't a real concern in this country.

                    And, regardless, no matter how many "well if you change this thing then this thing happens" qualifications you try to make it never comes back around to ride share companies forcing people to d

          • Um, being in a "gig economy" doesn't mean low profit jobs. You are including freelancers, small business owners, etc in your 1/3 number. It doesn't mean they are working for Uber or whatever. My dentist is in the "gig economy" because he owns his own business. He is making a lot more than any of us.

            • A dentist is a private business owner not a gig economy worker. Gig economy is anyone who is a non-employee through an app.
      • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
        Gee I'm glad I stayed in school otherwise the cops would have come and drafted me into driving for a ridesharing company against my will. They would literally handcuff me to the steering wheel...
        • by Anonymous Coward
          Here's your free whoosh
      • What we should do is make it illegal for ride share services to force private citizens to drive for them.

        I'd like to see ride share services force government employees to drive for them. The military would be a particularly neat trick.

    • The fact that they're pushing this idea of a slightly nebulous $21 minimum wage and telling employees to be against the SF bill or face lots of layoffs tells me this too! Classifying Uber drivers as employees (which they should) will seriously cut into their margins.

      • by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Thursday August 29, 2019 @03:16PM (#59138358) Homepage
        For me, the main reason SF should pass the bill is that ride-share directly competes with public transportation, taking what would be public funds for public services and converting them into private funds forcing public infrastructure to crumble. Other countries have great public transportation, to the point only high rollers would ever take a private car. We should be removing streets in cities and making them green-spaces, while optimizing for traffic flow. The last 1km problem, (deliveries, handicapped, elderly) can be solved by means other than automobiles. In the US our road systems optimize for traffic jams, just try taking a taxi to escape East Village on a Friday night, walking/biking/trains are faster, but only because of all the dysfunction caused by side roads feeding into main routes. Google/waze compound the problem by optimizing individual transit time over the average transit time, which should also probably be regulated.
        • Ride share actually complements public transit for that last mile. Many people I know Uber/Lyft to the nearest transit station because transit underserves a lot of areas. I know I've used it several times because there is either no public transit option or the public option runs so rarely it isn't practical.

          • by darkain ( 749283 )

            I've done this quite a bit, too. Express buses between cities run past midnight, but local buses stop around 9PM. So if I'm coming home late on the express bus (~35 miles on the interstate), I'm either forced into a terrible walk through questionable neighborhoods to get home (which takes >1 hour for the walk), or a quick 5 minute uber ride (~2 mile).

      • Why should uber drivers be employees? Do they have fixed hours? I really haven't looked into it in a while, but last time I looked, a contractor for Uber could.
        1) pick how many hours , if any , they worked on any given day.
        2) decided at any time to refuse whatever work they didn't want and take only the work they wanted.
        Also, if you read there terms of service, you are contracting to use a service that provides you with the ability to sell your service, not to Uber, but to a person wanting a ride. _They_ p

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by denzacar ( 181829 ) on Thursday August 29, 2019 @03:03PM (#59138276) Journal

      If only employees could collectively bargain with the corporation.
      Perhaps by organizing into some kind of an association of drivers... call it a guild of some kind.
      You know... like actors and writers and directors all have guilds.
      Or how medical staff have their own guilds.
      Or teachers.

      Maybe they could gamify that with a blockchain? To make it more disruptive. TO CEO BONUSES!!!

    • LMOL except they do. Uber sets the rules by which their drivers drive for them. Sorry Charlie but drivers are employees.
    • They don't need to wait. Uber already tells its drivers to do such things. While the driver can legally refuse, Uber can legally not send them any more fares.

      So the driver knows they're "fired" whether they're a contractor or an employee.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by jetkust ( 596906 )

      How they can lose money by only providing a damn app and some servers is beyond me.

      Because most of the money goes to the drivers.

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )

      They lose money because whenever they go into a new market they give a ton of incentives to pick up drivers and riders. Once they stop growing aggresively they will be profitable. They only lose money in the sense Amazon lost money for 15 years as they were investing all profits into expansion.
      Drivers who get reeled in by the incentives start cribbing when the incentives expire but that is what they signed up for.

  • "Wage" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday August 29, 2019 @02:31PM (#59138136)
    I don't think "wage" is the right word for a contractor's hourly rate that includes their operating expense
    • Or "layoff" for that matter.

    • As a contractor I was able to dictate my rate to the client or at least negotiate an amount I was willing to do the job for. Try this with Uber, lol.

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )

        Or any company that only wants to pay a certain rate, for that matter.

        If your rate is too high, they don't bother negotiating, they will just pass you over for someone who is willing to work for less.

      • by ghoul ( 157158 )

        You DO negotiate your rate with the end client. Uber's algo sets a rate for a particular ride based on customer interest and its up to you whether you want to bid for that contract or not. Nowhere in contracting does the client just give you what you ask. You ask for something, the client offers something and the negotiation meets somewhere in the middle.
        Here too the negotiation is happening -just the bids that are too low from client and too high from the driver don't get entered into the system. Many time

        • by ksw_92 ( 5249207 )

          "Yes or no" is not negotiation and you'd know it if you've ever been a contractor. Uber sets the bid and the ask and controls the inventory of rides within their app; they make the market. If you were a true independent contractor the app would allow prospective riders to negotiate a ride cost directly with a driver (or group of drivers). Likewise, the app would allow a driver to directly advertise a rate to a pool of riders. This would allow for a full free market.

          I'm still on the fence about the "employee

      • Speaking as an economist, there are *many* kinds of auctions--and that is, ultimately, how the ride shares work.

        The service *does* set a minimum price, and if there are enough drivers at the moment and area willing to do drive at that price, the auction doesn't happen.

        But the "surge" pricing (or whatever name) *IS* an auction. Those not willing to drive at the base rate jump into the system when supply/demand don't match, and the price goes up until equilibrium is met. As enough drive at the higher price

  • by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday August 29, 2019 @02:53PM (#59138232) Journal

    One of the benefits of working lyft or Uber is you get to set your own schedule and you are responsible to how much money you make an hour with no pressure. Now with this Uber will tell you when to work, when to be on call, and worse DO X PASSENGERS AN HOUR OR YOURE FIRED! Stressful and sometimes the metrics can't be met with circumstances beyond your control.

    Anyone who has ever had a shitty job and treated like shit (not most people here) and worked in a call center, factory, or fast food knows how terrible such a work environment like this is.

    Of course Uber will become overloards and assholes as they don't want to pay people not to bring in passengers. Might as well quit and go work in a piss in a bottle and wear a diaper Amazon wharehouse if you want this treatment with no flexibility.

    I am usually liberal and socialist in this area but I agree with the libertarians and right wing on this. Uber offers an alternative for crappy jobs and now with $21/HR UBer will be the new asshole overload to remain profitable and will probably have teams leads calling you for each 3 mins you do not have a passenger next.

    • So you troll for Uber. Nice.

      A contractors set their own rate. Drivers for Uber do not. Uber tells drivers when to drive. So now ass hole drivers for Uber are not contractors, they are employees.
      • A contractors set their own rate. Drivers for Uber do not.

        A potential contractor (one bidding a job) sets his own rate. A potential driver for Uber sets his own rate. If the rate is too high, the rate is rejected and the contractor doesn't get the job -- whether that's building trades or driving for Uber.

        Anyone who has accepted the work driving for Uber has set their rate at the rate Uber offers. If that rate is lower than they like, well, they can do the same thing any contractor who doesn't accept the offered rate does.

      • "A contractors set their own rate."
         
        Um no they don't. I have worked contracts where the rate was set by the people who wrote the bid contract. You don't know what you are talking about.

    • What you fail to understand is Uber already does all these things. Fail to do them and Uber will just stop sending you fares. Technically, they didn't "fire" you, but it has the same result.

  • The end result of this kind of government meddling will be the same sort of cartel system that caused everyone to hate taxicabs. Taxis enriched government insiders and connected cronies while serving the public very poorly.

    Uber and Lyft freed people from a government dominated system and gave us all a new way to get around. And they gave drivers a new way to earn some money. Now the government is trying to take that back.

    • Uber and Lyft freed people from what now? Tax payer subsidies to corporations bleeding billions of dollars? Nope that didn't happen.

      If Uber and Lyft want to finally admit they are taxi services and abide by regulations regulating taxis, that's fine. If they want to continue this fucking charade that all they are is a fucking app. Then fuck off.
      • "regulations regulating taxis"
         
        People like you are hilarious. You think there is some "regulations" and oversight of taxi cab companies. There isn't. There is no magical fairy that makes sure that taxi companies are doing the right thing. You just think there is.

        • Then how do you explain this [sfmta.com] (for example)? It sure looks like they regulate lots of things about taxis.
        • Then fix that? Other countries seem to manage just fine - the cost of becoming a taxi driver (either private hire, which is what Uber and Lyft provide, or hackney, which is the other alternative) in the UK for example is trivial, and the regulatory system works. Don't mistake the failures of the US system, with million dollar medallions and other bullshit, as being the only way possible.

  • It costs $30/hour to operate a car
  • Lyft sent a message to its drivers, asking them to talk their legislators out of the bill, saying it could cause the company to "offload" or layoff hundreds of thousands of drivers...

    ... sooner than planned because their autonomous cars aren't ready yet.

    The message from Lyft also told drivers that AB5 could cost customers more money and make them wait longer for a car...

    ... because there will be less drivers on the road which would have the net effect of improving traffic congestion [slashdot.org].

  • Uber just needs to lower their gouging of X and XL drivers from forty fucking percent down, not back to twenty percent but something fucking reasonable... and quit pretending to themselves that they're going to corner everything from 'Ubiquitous Public VTOL' to bonafide Johnny Cabs (that R&D/patent-grab is their only real liability; otherwise, the cocksuckers have created a 'license to print money' out of the blood of their drivers and the corpse of the cab industry).
  • Why dont uber drivers and amazon warehouse workers quit and go to industries where the conditions are better. For example, an uber driver who barley makes ends meat could quit and be a retail worker who barely makes ends meat. The invisible hand of the free market will increase wages as uber tries to retain drivers. No matter what job you work, as long as your WILLING to work it at the current compensation, nothing will change no matter how much you protest. The only thing protesting does is cause uber t
  • but its still cheaper than a taxi?
    Should have just had every city keep their taxi services :)
  • If so then that's proof of price fixing with intent, right? And isn't that illegal and monopolistic action that probably will get some people thrown in jail at these companies? Isn't Price Fixing a Mob Activity? Please tell me its publicly traceable that they both agree to this price?!

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