Uber Plans Millions In Back Pay After Shorting NYC Drivers

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Uber Technologies Inc. said it underpaid its New York City drivers by improperly calculating the company's share of passenger fares, and will pay out an average of $900 per driver in restitution, costing tens of millions of dollars. The back pay could run at least $45 million, based on the approximately 50,000 drivers the Independent Drivers Guild says work in New York City. The ride-hailing company has previously misled drivers about how much they could make and miscalculated fares. In this case, Uber was taking its cut of fares based on the pretax sum, instead of after taxes and fees as stated in its terms of service. The issue was also raised in a lawsuit against San Francisco-based Uber filed by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. In March, Uber acknowledged that it had underestimated drivers' pay in Philadelphia by millions of dollars. "We are committed to paying every driver every penny they are owed -- plus interest -- as quickly as possible," Rachel Holt, Uber's head of U.S. operations, said in a statement. "We are working hard to regain driver trust, and that means being transparent, sticking to our word, and making the Uber experience better from end to end."

This is

[Dunbal]

The technique commonly known as "robbing Peter to pay Paul".

Re:

[Joe_Dragon]

and then we will pay 30K-40K / year to lock up paul.

Re:

[davester666]

Mouth is only $5. The other ports are more.

Re:

[thomn8r]

Mouth is only $5. The other ports are more.

How much for the SCSI?

Lyft

[110010001000]

Another Uber hate story brought to you by the fine people at Lyft and their corporate partner, GM. Give it up Lyft. No one is using you.

Re:

[Hentes]

While the chain of slanderous articles attacking Uber was definitely suspicious, they did manage to dig up some actual dirt. At which point it doesn't matter who is orchestrating the thing, Uber was caught doing naughty stuff and they are getting some well deserved hate for it.

Re:Lyft

[DRJlaw]

Give it up Lyft. No one is using you.

I used Lyft twice last week. I also deleted the Uber app earlier this year and have pretty much devided that I'll use a taxi before supporting Kalanick's demon spawn of a company.

So there.

Re:

[gnasher719]

Another Uber hate story brought to you by the fine people at Lyft and their corporate partner, GM. Give it up Lyft. No one is using you.

Nice reaction. It seems this is not a "hate story", but just a case of Uber badly miscalculating what they should pay drivers according to their contracts (and according to common sense). It seems that Uber paid drivers a percentage of payment minus taxes, so the drivers then had to pay most of those taxes, while Uber kept the money in their pocket.

Laws

[manu0601]

It seems Uber will always wait to be in court to consider laws as relevant for them.

Plus Interest?

[wisnoskij]

So what Interest are they getting? The article mentions the average and total, but not how much interest they are making.

Welcome to the gig economy...

[Matt Bury]

...where you're beholden to one corporation for your work, have no benefits or statutory rights, and have to take legal action to get what you're owed. Meanwhile, politicians sit back and do little to nothing to address a systemic problem that has only political and legal solutions.

Re:

[Joe_Dragon]

But they control people like W2 workers But they pay and list them as 1099 workers. Also there time clock is set up so they only get paid for some work tasks.

Where there estimations based on full 2-8 work days at say $15-$20/hr (car reimbursement mixed in but some what hidden).

But they only paid for driving miles + some wait time.
But not
* Driving to the pickup
* Waiting at pickup site
* Limited waiting pay for stuck in traffic.
* Waiting for next pick up after an ride
* Limited pay for long ride return.
* Limite

When the IRS classes there drivers as W2 they will

[Joe_Dragon]

When the IRS classes there drivers as W2 they will have to employment taxes.

Uber not so Über

[LesserWeevil]

Uber seems to have screwed the pooch in just about every area possible lately. What is it, greed, ignorance or simply mendacity? All three?

Re:

[fluffernutter]

They seem to be under the impression that a successful business only takes an app. Obviously they also found many investors who thought the same thing. Now they are finding out there is more to it than just having an app.

Is anyone really surprised?

[mccrew]

Can't really be all that shocked to find out that a company that, when given a choice, ALWAYS chooses the shady path. Whether it's ignoring local laws, tracking officials, stealing trade secrets from competitors, or mistreating employees, the behavior of the company is a direct reflection of the character - or rather the lack of - flowing directly from its leadership. So sad to hear that little guys got screwed, again, but alas not any surprise. Just another day in Uber-land.