Uber Is Locking Out NYC Drivers Mid-Shift to Lower Minimum Pay

"...making it difficult for drivers to plan work shifts and treat Uber as a full-time job."

So which is it they want flexible gig work that they can do at their own schedule in their own pace, or do they want planned work shifts in a full-time job. It seems what drivers are really asking for his money without any work. Because taking flexible gig work means you have the flexibility to work when you want without planning. So why wouldn't your employer also demand that same flexibility to say too many gig workers we're going to kick some of you out and you can't get back in.

It seems to me that this is just the nature of what we call "day laborers". I know the "on an iPhone" phenomenon people think this idea of day labor or gig work is new. It's not it's been around since the beginning of time. Day laborers show up at a certain spot people who need day laborers show up at that spot pick who they want leave behind those that they do not want and that's that. This is literally no different. Uber drivers wanted that flexibility day labor gig work and then started crying because they wanted a more stable income than what day labor provides. So they got the law involved to say well you got to pay people for standing around. Uber says fine you're no longer standing around for us so you don't need to be paid.

If you want a steady job get a steady job if you want day labor work you show up and sometimes you get picked for the day labor and sometimes you go home broke.

I learned within the past year that Uber sucks for drivers around NYC. The T&LC rules mean that someone who's not registered can't take pickups in NYC. They can still drop you off though, so Uber considers it valid to assign a non-T&LC vehicle to drive into NYC. Of course when that happens, the driver has an empty car going back the other way. It's awful for their pay and a big waste of energy and road space.

Some drivers will just deal with it, but many end up asking if you're going into NYC. If you're lucky they will cancel the ride immediately, but if not then you have to wait for them to drive by your pickup spot before canceling the ride (which I have to assume is so they can say that they couldn't find you).

When I do need a car into the city and it's serviced by a non-T&LC driver, I now make sure to leave a huge tip to make up for Uber not giving drivers an option to not be matched with people going into NYC.

First of all, this is partially the result of clearly terrible lawmaking:

> In emails to drivers, Uber and Lyft have blamed each other — and the commission — for lockouts. In its minimum-pay formula, the TLC calculates non-passenger time as an industry average. When Lyft drivers aren’t as busy, for example, Uber has to increase driver pay because non-passenger time is higher on average. “The city’s rule bizarrely holds Uber responsible for Lyft’s failures,” said Uber spokesperson Freddi Goldstein. “With Lyft struggling to keep drivers busy, we don’t have other options.”

But secondly, genuinely what other outcome would the lawmakers have expected?

Previously, drivers could drive whenever they wanted, and they'd make more money in periods of higher unmet demand, which would lead to more drivers on the road during times of peak demand (good), and then drivers could decide for themselves whether it was worth it to drive in times of slow demand -- even if this resulted in less than minimum wage.

Now, if there's a requirement that all drivers must make minimum wage, then during times of low demand, Uber/Lyft/etc. are forced to simply boot off a bunch of drivers so that there are enough fares left for the remaining drivers so they will be able to make minimum wage.

And there's no obvious "fair" way to do that. You can't do it with pricing like before (since that's been made illegal), so it's necessarily going to be some kind of random lottery. And since demand fluctuates in ways that aren't always predictable (like rain), you can't really plan/schedule in advance. So drivers just get randomly deactivated right now -- instead of making less than minimum wage, they make nothing.

I just don't see another way -- once a period of peak demand ends (like after morning rush hour), some drivers are going to have to be booted off if you want to maintain minimum wage.

Don't blame Uber. I don't see how the law could have resulted in any other outcome.

Uber and Lyft underpriced their car service for years and years, killing off a lot traditional competition, i.e., independent taxi and limo companies.

Now, both Uber and Lyft seek to be profitable... so they are squeezing every possible penny out of riders and drivers.

If it looks, smells, and tastes like a Doo-Oh-Poh-Lee, it probably is one.

I feel like I often hear these kinds of stories about Uber, but rarely about Lyft. Is Lyft actually better, or are they just more under the radar?

It's a stupid rule to require drivers to be paid simply for logging in.

Uber owns the thing that the taxi companies don't have, a complex, real time transactional application that pairs drivers with riders. They can pick and choose who they want using it(sans discriminatory, see - illegal checks). And they are well within their means to say when a driver can and can't work on their own platform. If drivers want to be rid of this menace - Uber, then they are free to become cab drivers if they wish. Or use Lyft. Nobody gets paid for not producing which is what these drivers seem to want.

Company is minimizing its costs. News at 11.

F*ck Uber.

I wish the United States would do what Greece did.

> At the heart of the move, say the two companies, is a six-year-old pay rule in New York that, among other things, requires firms like Uber and Lyft to pay drivers for the idle time they rack up between rides.

Remember, Uber and Lyft were created to get around labor laws, and here we see the companies continuing to try to skirt labor laws. It is a standard move of capitalists to fight regulations tooth and nail to try to protect their profit margins. These are fundamentally unprofitable businesses built on exploiting vulnerable workers.

Like it or not, in the current US Capitalist's Environment (as opposed to some mythical earlier time when corporations were supposed to have some social responsibility), in this current environment, Humans are a Commodity.

If there is a human surplus, the cost(pay) goes down.

If there is a human shortage, the price(pay) goes up.

When there are fewer desperate humans needing Uber to eat, and Uber can't find drivers, then suddenly Uber will start paying and treating people better.

This is only newsworthy because Uber by its nature of having all independent contractors with a very obvious 'market' linking drivers to passengers. Makes this clear.

It becomes very starkly clear the value of the driver and how much a human is worth. And that Uber can tweak their algorithms to minimize how much drivers are paid, thus providing a 'market' price for humans.

Uber isn't special, it is just this human value is starkly on display.