Uber Is Treating Its Drivers As Sweated Labor, Says Report (theguardian.com)

Uber treats its drivers as Victorian-style "sweated labor", with some taking home less than the minimum wage, according to a report into its working conditions based on the testimony of dozens of drivers. From a report on The Guardian: Drivers at the taxi-hailing app company reported feeling forced to work extremely long hours, sometimes more than 70 a week, just to make a basic living, said Frank Field, the Labor MP and chair of the work and pensions committee. Field received testimony from 83 drivers who said they often took home significantly less than the "national living wage" after paying their running costs. The report says they described conditions that matched the Victorian definition of sweated labor: "when earnings were barely sufficient to sustain existence, hours of labor were such as to make lives of workers periods of ceaseless toil; and conditions were injurious to the health of workers and dangerous to the public."

Comments

"Feel forced?"

[aldousd666]

Nobody is forcing anyone to drive for Uber. Quit if you don't like it. Holy crap there's someone willing to pay you to drive your own car. If that's not your bag, fine. But go somewhere else to complain about it.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[harrkev]

Next step: pay Uber drivers more, so Uber has to charge more.

Eventual outcome: Uber costs just as much as a taxi, so you might as well call a taxi in the first place.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[jwymanm]

Tell me about it. If it doesn't work as a full time job so what? Pay your car loan only then. What the hell is wrong with people that think everything should just work perfectly for them? You sit in a car and push a frigging pedal. Yes it hurts your car and the costs can be greater than the reward part of the time. Obviously there is an agenda to crowd source anger against uber/lyft etc going on right now. Not sure if the drivers are getting caught up in it (since you can't rely on most "news" anymore), the cause of it, or victims of it (cab companies?). News at 11: Lemonade stand doesn't pay children back for their child slave labor.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[Jzanu]

Step 1: Create system where I make money doing nothing, we will call this being a platform Step 2: Force existing systems to work for me by under cutting prices and providing a better way to interact Step 3: Profit

Shit, Uber makes profit by undercutting cabs who already did not make much money... You can tell people not to drive for them, but when you see the lease terms uber demands (weekly payments, taken directly from your take, you dont pay we take the car) then you see that they are required to drive, and drive long hours if riders are minimal.

This is a firm that has a master plan of shifting as much as it can on to other people so its 30% cut can be 90% profit. So far its working because people with no job will work any job in a world where unskilled labor is not worth much (driving is definitely on the unskilled labor side here) There are simply not many other jobs out there for a subset of people.

Uber's real business (see bottom of page) model is incentivizing wage-slavery with poverty wages and binding contract enforcement - it is just the vehicular version of the company town.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[Archangel Michael]

It isn't anywhere close to being a "company town". They aren't requiring you to buy Shell gas, take your car to JiffyLube, tires by Toyo ....

GAWD STOP THE HYPERBOLE!

Next thing your gonna say is Uber is Racist and Sexist.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[fluffernutter]

Would you eat at an unregulated restaurant if it meant you had a chance of getting food poisoning every time you ate there? No one sat down and said they wantd to make taxis more expensive 'just because'. There are reasons for that extra cost that protect the public over time (both customers and non-customers). By taking the cheaper price, you are making things a little worse for the entire population of the city you live in.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[matbury]

Taxi drivers also have regulated hours. Being tired is as impairing and dangerous as being drunk. Would you hail a cab if you knew the driver was drunk? If he's been working double the recommended hours a week, like an Uber driver, he's likely to be severely impaired and very likely to have an accident.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[fluffernutter]

Food trucks still have to have safety inspections, stainless steel surfaces, adequate cooling, etc. Unless you live in a poor region of a country like India, which is where the US is headed it seems.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[SvnLyrBrto]

And I'll still choose Uber over a Cab at, or even above, taxi prices. I've been using them since they called themselves "Ubercab", only offered the town car service, were only available in San Francisco, and were, yes, more expensive than a taxi.

Why? Because Uber drivers show up where and when they are dispatched. They will pick you up in the avenues (The Sunset and Richmond districts.), and don't throw a hissy fit when you need to be driven out there. They don't play the "my credit card reader is broken, cash only" scam. And their cars are clean, well-maintained, and don't stink of smoke, vomit or pee. None of the same is true of cabbies.

The only reason Uber, Lyft, and the like were able to catch on is because the legacy taxi companies offer an appallingly dismal service. They made their bed. Now they can lie in it. And I'll go on using the superior service; even if the price goes back up to what it was before they introduced UberX.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is slashdot. No one here is a fucking idiot.

A virgin idiot, on the other hand...

Re:"Feel forced?"

[ShanghaiBill]

Would you eat at an unregulated restaurant if it meant you had a chance of getting food poisoning every time you ate there?

False analogy. We regulate restaurants because unregulated restaurants had a track record of making people sick. Health inspections of restaurants are designed to insure they are clean and healthy. The are NOT designed to restrict entry and limit competition. Comparing restaurant health inspections to the taxi medallion racket is absurd.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[evilviper]

No one sat down and said they wantd to make taxis more expensive 'just because'. There are reasons for that extra cost that protect the public

There's certainly some of that, but all too much of it is rent-seeking, lack of modern technology, and hanging onto depreciated business models.

The insane price of NYC taxi medallions for example. Technology allowing drivers to rate passengers, therefore allowing expensive trouble passengers to be left without a lift. Technology allowing passengers to get prices and comparison shop rather than being locked-in to the rates of whichever taxi pulls up, and depending on the route they take. Better utilization by telling drivers where passengers are. Technology that forces passengers to pay without cab drivers needing to tackle cheats. etc.

I have no love for Uber / Lyft abusing their employees, skirting innumerable laws, and throwing money around to try and get themselves exemptions, but it's easy to make the case that the traditional taxi system was incredibly inefficient and rather corrupt, for no good reason.

Re: "Feel forced?"

[Motherfucking Shit]

Do you know how much gross shit you consume under the guise of an "A" rated restaurant?

I do, and that stuff happens even with the threat of a health inspector randomly showing up at any time. Imagine the shit that would go on if the regulations disappeared.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[ShanghaiBill]

I'd rather protect a corrupt industry

False dilemma. Neither should be "protected". Both should be allowed to compete.

employs thousands of people

Many people use Uber regularly that rarely or never used taxis. So total employment goes up with Uber-like services.

rather then protect a single corrupt company

It is not a "single company". There is Uber, but also Lyft, and a few other smaller companies competing. There is little to stop additional companies from entering the market. I am mostly a Lyft user, but would be happy to switch to save $1 on a ride.

cares about benefiting no one but themselves.

How is that any different from any other company?

Re:"Feel forced?"

[drinkypoo]

Would you eat at an unregulated restaurant if it meant you had a chance of getting food poisoning every time you ate there? No one sat down and said they wantd to make taxis more expensive 'just because'. There are reasons for that extra cost that protect the public over time (both customers and non-customers).

Those reasons are all bullshit. Half of the taxis I have been in were falling apart, usually in ways that actually made them unsafe. I know two women who have been raped by taxi drivers. Taxis already refuse to pick up fares in bad neighborhoods, or just never bother to show up. (And if you tell dispatch where you're going, and it's a bad neighborhood, they will also frequently just never show up.) Taxis are shit and the excuses for taxi licensing are shit. If you want Uber to be as safe as a taxi, you're going to have to make it substantially less safe than it is today.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[delt0r]

The main reason taxis are expensive is local monopolies. Typically the local government has a hand in the pie. It certainly has nothing to do with ensuring good taxi service, that is for sure. The expensive taxis here (about 2-3x as much as uber) provide a all round far worse service. In EVERY single respect.

Re:"Feel forced?"

[fluffernutter]

Regulations on buildings help to ensure their buildings are safe. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule but at least it is under control.
Regulations on food places help to ensure the food is safe. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule but at least it is under control.
Regulations on drugs help to ensure the drugs are safe. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule but at least it is under control.
Regulations on flight help to ensure the flight is safe. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule but at least it is under control.
Regulations to taxis help to ensure the ride is safe. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule but at least it is under control.

Don't worry

[FunkSoulBrother]

The Slashdot alt-right crew (really 75% of the commenting userbase that has aged into that lovely target demographic) will be here in no time to tell you about how this job, like fast food or retail, isn't deserving of a living wage and only exists for 18 year old suburban kids to make pocket money off of.

And to (lol) pay their way through college with (STEM majors only deserving of a living, of course).

Re:Don't worry

[Altus]

I'm not so sure its about aging... I think its mostly that anyone else has given up on this place and moved on... arguing with Alt right or hyper libertarian or whatever the flavor of the month zealots are, its exhausting... and this place isn't important enough anymore to make it worth defending from idiots with poorly formed world views who can't see past the end of their own noses.

There are a few old timers still around... like me they tend to post less an less and just ignore the cesspool that this place has become out of a sense of nostalgia.

Re: Don't worry

[jlowery]

I would like people who work hard not to starve in the process.

Re:Don't worry

[FunkSoulBrother]

So any source of income must guarantee a living wage?

If you spend *seventy* hours a week doing it, then yeah it better damn well have.

Re: Don't worry

[jlowery]

The key is to run a business that is profitable enough to pay its workers a wage sufficient to cover food and medical and housing. Otherwise, my tax money does it and those dollars essentially make the business owner a welfare recipient by enabling him to be artificially enriched.

If your business doesn't sell a product people are willing to spend enough for you pay your workers a living wage, then your business should go bankrupt. I'm not paying for your beach house.

Re: Don't worry

[MightyMartian]

Exactly right. Far too many businesses, including big monster corporations like Walmart, essentially rely upon taxpayer-funded social safety nets to basically be their benefit and wage fallback system. They may claim they're paying what the market will bear, but what they're really doing is underwriting their own profits at the expense of taxpayers.

Re:Don't worry

[MightyMartian]

It will certainly be screwed if it keeps allowing corporate interests to arguing away the taxes they should be paying.

I'm genuinely concerned that events like Brexit and the Trump victory are the opening shots in some sort of modern day French revolution. The aristocrats of our age are as detached from reality as the French aristocrats were, and as unwilling to accept the responsibilities that come with vast accrual of wealth. They are creating a dangerously unstable situation, and when the Trumps of the world prove as incapable or unwilling to rebalance economic and social issues, then we may be facing a far less savory group of revolutionaries. And, as the French Revolution so ably demonstrated, even wealth isnt an absolute shield.

Re: Don't worry

[MightyMartian]

A libertarianism and its "freedom to starve".

Re:Don't worry

[quax]

The anti-establishment mood certainly feels dark enough.

Revolutions are rarely pretty neither for those revolting nor those on the top.

Eat Cake! [Re:The joy of contracting: don't do it

[Tablizer]

If you don't want to be a wage slave, don't be a wage slave; do something else.

Are you by chance related to Marie Antoinette?

Says a man or woman

[rsilvergun]

who's never had a rent check bounce. Or never had to pay out of pocket to fix a kid's broken arm. Or been born in a rust belt town when the last factory just left and/or automated.

That's the essence of modern American Slavery. Nobody's _ever_ forcing you. You're completely free to starve to death and die in the streets. It's why the South abandoned real slavery. Wage Slavery is ever so much more cost effective.

Re:Says a man or woman

[Solandri]

Wage slavery is never cost effective except for the slave owner. That's what makes it an unstable system which can only be perpetuated by government collusion, or lack of willpower by the employees to break out of slavery. e.g. Detroit used to have slave-level wages. Henry Ford decided to set up shop there and paid his factory workers much more than the prevailing wage. He accidentally discovered that when he paid people a fair wage, not only did their productivity increase, but they used those wages to buy the very product they were helping build. The resulting feedback loop multiplied his company's revenue and turned the Ford Motor Company into the behemoth it is today. No longer were cars affordable only to the privileged elite; the average middle class worker (by Ford factory standards) could afford to buy one.

If the only options you see are being a wage slave or starving to death, then you haven't really tried. A location where the people are being paid slave wages or starving is ripe for a new company to set up shop and hire willing employees for less than they'd have to pay at well-established locations. As more of these people become employed and spend their wages on local merchants, the economy picks up. There are fewer unemployed, resulting in wages increasing. This is how the market equalizes geographic wage inequality. If this isn't happening, then there are fundamental problems with the region not caused by slave wages. Maybe the location is too far from markets, or the highway/railroad access is poor, or people just don't want to live in that location. Unless the government is intentionally keeping business out, low wages are a symptom not a cause.

And yes I've had a rent check bounce. A rent check a tenant gave me. I was stupid and deposited it directly into our payroll bank account since it almost exactly topped off the amount we needed to make payroll. Normally I transfer the payroll money from our primary checking account, but I was lazy and decided to save a little work by depositing the checks directly into payroll. As a result I got charged a bounced check fee, but more importantly a bunch of my employees' paychecks bounced, causing more bounced check fees for both them and myself. The whole thing was a disaster. I called in each employee who was affected, apologized to them in person, and told them to bring in their bank statement so I could reimburse their bounced check fee (or fees if they then wrote checks which bounced). The ones who needed the money immediately, I paid in cash out of my own pocket. All told it was over $1300 in bank fees incurred because I was stupid/lazy, and because the person who wrote the first check did so knowing he didn't have enough money to cover it but thought it would be easier turning his problem into my problem.

It's cliche, but it's true. Your employees are your most valuable asset. A good business will do everything it can to protect them and to retain them. A business which pays slave wages is just ripe to be squeezed out by a business which will pay better (fair) wages. The only way a slave wage business can stay in business is if the government is blocking competing businesses, or if people like you have so discouraged others with your gloom and doom hopeless corporate feudalism talk that they don't even bother trying to start up their own business to compete.

Re:Says a man or woman

[Attila Dimedici]

Supply and demand DOES apply to the labor force. Since tech labor salaries are not rising rapidly it is clear that those who say it is in short supply are LYING (or misinformed, we must remember that not every one who says something that is demonstrably wrong is evil, some of them are just stupid).

Re:Says a man or woman

[Anonymous Coward]

... when he paid people a fair wage, not only did their productivity increase, but they used those wages to buy the very product ...

It might be a chicken and egg situation: A moving assembly line increased productivity while simultaneously demanding more employee effort: The higher wages were both compensation for the shittier working conditions and a reward for the higher productivity.

... pays slave wages is just ripe to be squeezed out by a business which will pay better (fair) wages ...

Unfortunately other industries, such as mining, had transferred costs onto employees for centuries (isolated living, pollution, injury and death) so they fought very long and violently to keep it that way. Also, mechanization was under-utilized at the time and paying better wages to all those labourers would make the businesses un-competitive.

Thanks to Ford, many businesses wanted to pay higher wages: That was soon discouraged by shareholders who demanded that businesses pay only the 'going rate' for employees. We've seen that wages did not keep pace with productivity and the extra money went into bonuses for C-level employees and 'wealth creators', not more factories and jobs.

The exception was the 1970s when increasing unionization meant employees could demand better wages. To offset the increased costs, businesses demanded reduced competition, in the form of import quotas and tariffs. The result of a near monopoly in manufacturing was wages rising while productivity decreased. That led to decreased exports, increased cost of living and a roll-back of protectionist laws.

It's easy to see what should happen, making it happen is difficult because there is so much interference when linking wages to productivity.

Re:Says a man or woman

[MrL0G1C]

For example:
Thousands have died after being found fit for work, DWP figures show | Society | The Guardian

Re:Says a man or woman

[serviscope_minor]

or lack of willpower by the employees to break out of slavery

Ah, it's the slaves fault that they're slaves, then.

If the only options you see are being a wage slave or starving to death, then you haven't really tried. A location where the people are being paid slave wages or starving is ripe for a new company to set up shop and hire willing employees for less than they'd have to pay at well-established locations.

Ah yes, it's so easy to set up a company when you're a wage slave and have no spare resources with which to set up the company. If you don't you just lack the willpower to starve to death for a few months or years before your company takes off.

Oh and if you don't have a head for business, you deserve to be a wage slave because fuck you that's why.

A business which pays slave wages is just ripe to be squeezed out by a business which will pay better (fair) wages.

Oh yes, that's precisely how things worked in Victorian England.

You know, or not.that they don't even bother trying to start up their own business to compete.

Starting a business is the highest form of intellect and worth. If you can't, then die in filth, scum. You deserve worse!

You're kinda trolling

[rsilvergun]

but my God, you make a good point in all that. I'd been noticing how far right /. had moved and wondering why for some time. It hadn't occurred to me that they'd just aged into right wing politics like their parents from the 60s did... Hows that saying go? Everything old is new again...

Re:You're kinda trolling

[MightyMartian]

The problem being that modern conservatism has evolved into a reality-denying screed that is purely short term reactionaryism.

Re:You're kinda trolling

[Rob Riggs]

I think if you look at the user IDs of the shit-posting alt-right accounts, you will find they are mostly new accounts. There are a few that have been around for a long time, but they didn't "age" into being dicks. They always were.

Why not?

[JBMcB]

Why not $30? Heck, why not $50? More is better, no? Don't you want workers to be well paid?

Re:Why not?

[dbarclay10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Dick.

Re:Why not?

[Carewolf]

Why not $30? Heck, why not $50? More is better, no? Don't you want workers to be well paid?

Because the higher it is, the stronger the negative consequences are. A minimum wage should be a minimum (it is IN the name), it should just be high enough to do its job, which is to ensure people can actually live off the wage.

Re:Wait what?

[Jzanu]

Uber profits from making it into one.

Re:Tough shit

[aldousd666]

There's always another option. It might not be a great one. Or the one you want, but there's always another option.

Uber needs a recession

[ghoul]

The Uber business model only works for newly laid off workers who have a nice car with car payments to make. Its not meant to be a fulltime job. The entire gig economy including iOS apps only took off as in 2008 a lot of people lost their jobs but they still had cars, computers and loads of time on their hand. As we closer to full employment people who have a choice have moved away from gigs. Taxi companies are built upon the exploitation of illegal immigrant drivers. Uber as a high visibility company cannot compete with Taxi companies as it cant hire illegal immigrants and pay them sweat wages under the table. At the same time driving a cab will not support a minimum wage so the best thing for Uber would be to go back to being a gig company. Put a hard cap of 10 hours a week on driving for a driver - that will remove the entire pool of drivers expecting to make a living from Uber, stop promoting Uber driving as a full time job and stop giving leases to drivers to buy cars to drive for Uber. Stop trying to grow for growth's sake. Stay at the size of a gig economy company like a temp agency. They have some good software - license it to taxi companies and let them use it for managing their own fleets in a mutli-tenant kind of model.

Re:Uber needs a recession

[ghoul]

There are many ways to be illegal - you may be in the country legally but work illegally. Tourists on B1 as well as Students on F1 are entitled to get licenses and drive cars. Many students moonlight as cab drivers. Similarly refugees awaiting work permits moonlight as cab driver. Its one of the few jobs you can do without a US based credential as long as you know how to drive.

Re:Tough shit

[MightyMartian]

Even brilliant people can find themselves out of work, and become prey for pretty predatory companies happy to take advantage of them. I've worked in the employment industry for many years and see even some pretty highly skilled people stuck in shit-ass jobs because they can't afford to move.

That is why most jurisdictions have it least some basic level of worker protection, and why no one seriously contemplates turning the industrialized world into a Libertarian fantasy land.

That's fine for lemonade

[rsilvergun]

It's a luxury good. It gets a lot iffier when you start talking about health care. And basic housing. And enough access to food that you can't be pressured into effective slavery. Do the folks in China working 16 hour shifts 6 days a week really have a choice?

No market is ever free. Money is power. The one who controls your access to food, water, shelter and health care controls _you_. You can either support democratic socialism, dream of joining the ruling elite (you're on /., so it's safe to say you haven't done that yet) or wallow in the muck while dragging us all down with you. Even if you don't choose one of those 3 options one will be chosen _for_ you.

Wow, just... I mean, wow.

[rsilvergun]

Are you seriously that dense? Or do you work for one of those Russian pro trolling sites? If you do see your boss, you need to brush up on your work.

Should a woman who gets beaten by her husband stick around because it's a "good economic move"? If you're answer is yes, then I suppose in that light, yeah, keep driving for Uber without complaint. Just ask your sugar daddy to buy you some nice sunglasses to cover up the bruises.

For what it's worth

[rsilvergun]

thanks for posting what you can. We could use more old timers like you.

pump n dump scam

[TiggertheMad]

They are hemorrhaging billions annually, so eventually they will implode and the problem will solve itself. If they actually manage to achieve their goal of a monopoly on the transportation market, they will just get nuked with the Sherman anti-trust act.

I think they know this, they are just a big pump n dump scam for early investors.

Rigged market

[ezdiy]

A day trader perspective of TFA:

Uber dictates their working patterns once they have logged on, has raised its commission while cutting the rates they can charge, and imposes lockouts from its system if drivers turn down too many jobs.

Translation:

Market exchange dictates the trading hours, imposes ridiculous trading commision fees (15-30%), puts a cap on the ask offers and kicks you out if you don't execute enough trades.

Now, why on earth would sellers stay on a market this shitty? Bandwagon effect. Other competing exchanges don't have the liquidity. Why people use Microsoft products? Bandwagon effect. Once you get something shitty going, it can keep going on its momentum alone.

That the exchange can dictate price levels really is a problem because it creates race-to-the-bottom pressures - negative feedback loop - drivers can't go to competing markets which treat em better, because their cheap labor keeps those alternative companies out of the business (and even if those adopt similiarly shitty business practices, they end up being no better than uber). Thus the accusations of entrapment.

If Uber wants to be merely a clearing house for car hailing settlements that's fine, but people should call it out on their attempts to corner the market in order to keep their first mover monopoly.

Re:So, No?

[edtice1559]

http://www.economist.com/blogs... http://livingwage.mit.edu/page... What we try to do is to calculate what amount of money allow somebody to cover the basic necessities. Maybe there is an argument for $30 but it's not "more is better." The argument for a living wage is that if somebody works a 40-60 hour week, they should be able to afford food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. I don't know of any places where $30/hr would be needed for this. But the "more is better" argument is a ridiculous strawman which is why nobody will debate you.