Uber, Lyft drivers to go ahead with strike today
The Uber and Lyft drivers’ strike looks set go ahead Wednesday across the country, causing disruption to the morning commute for people in up to 10 major metro areas.
Drivers working for Uber and Lyft, as well as Juno and Via will go offline in cities including New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles, protesting at pay and working conditions.
Drivers’ group are demanding a bigger cut of customer revenues and in some cities, a minimum wage.
"The Lyft and Uber business model is to ignore and bulldoze basic labor rights in order to make as much profit as they can from their business," said Nicole Moore of of Rideshare Drivers United-Los Angeles, a group represents 100,000 ride-hailing drivers in Los Angeles.
The big two ride hailing firms say drivers get an average $20 per hour before expenses like fuel and maintenance costs but this has long been disputed by drivers.
Calculating the true take-home pay of drivers is difficult due to lack of transparency and variable costs and previous independent studies have varied widely in their findings. A MIT study found Uber and Lyft drivers typically made under $10 net per hour.
Uber acknowledged the difficulty in calculating average driver pay.
"People work with different intensities in different places and the market rewards those different behaviors differently," said Uber economist Jonathan Hall.
"We know that access to flexible, extra income makes a big difference for millions of people, and we’re constantly working to improve how we can best serve our driver community," Lyft said in a statement.
The strike action has been timed just ahead of Uber’s IPO, as the company seeks to convince investors it will one day become profitable.
"Investors need to know that they are investing in a company that is degrading America’s working class and degrading our economy," Rideshare Drivers United said.
Despite the apparent low driver pay, Uber still lost $1.8 billion in 2018 even though it generated $48 billion in sales.
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