Considering the level of coordination it takes to make anything cohesive on those, let's see spez try and downplay us again with 'only a small percentage of users'.
Yep! I think it’s also a great example of how well a simple message can propagate. The whole emotional force of about six weeks of emotional drama has boiled down into eight letters, repeated by… what would you say, thousands?… of individuals.
What a stark difference between last year and this year. Last year there was the outpouring of support for Ukraine. This year it will be a "fuck u/spez" shit show.
This is the best one in my opinion, just straight up “Yeah, so you want to take us seriously in your meetings but won’t take us seriously when a huge chunk of your population leaves and the rest have a huge upheaval.”
Good for the mod team. If Reddit is going to take away the only functional tools that make the volunteer work possible, Reddit can pay for moderators to come in and do it.
If you have a job providing transportation, then you are on-call, whether you're transporting customers or not. And you should be paid for BEING on-call. This is a standard practice in several industries.
Eh, it's not quite the same as other professions. If a sysadmin gets an after hours call, they must work it. If a ride share person is offered a fare, they can accept it or turn it down.
That's pretty typical, honestly. When working regular jobs, I've been paid one way, and not paid for time not working. The term is "waiting to engage", versus "engaged to wait". That is, if they want me to sit around to be available at a moment's notice, they pay me for that time. If I can go off and do other stuff and be vaguely available with whatever delay, then I don't get paid, because I'm not working and I'm not losing any of my own time.
I don't really think Uber should pay for time back directly, but they should definitely increase the cost of longer runs, especially to lower-volume areas where the driver might not have a fare in the other direction. (The driver is also not required to take any particular fare at all, so if they feel they'd lose money on it, they shouldn't take it.)
Honestly, you could make a strong argument that drivers are indeed independent contractors under US labor law. However, if the court has found that they should qualify for more pay and benefits, I'm certainly not going to argue that it should be taken away. In fact I'm going to celebrate it.
I'm not arguing that this is a good deal or met whatever goal. I'm just saying it's an upgrade.
Also, as a former uber driver, there are strategies to make the best use of your time. If this new wage applied to my location I would buy a car and make a killing. That said, I'm in the minority that prefers to run their own business rather than be an employee so if I have to be a wage slave again then no thanks.
Give me the math of how this new wage would help you “make a killing”.
Keep in mind that this wage merely sets a floor for the specific-minutes when you have a fare.
(And brother - driving for uber is not "running your own business"... it's being maximally-exploited by a business... with no liability-protection, no security, and almost zero rights.)
(And brother - driving for uber is not "running your own business"... it's being maximally-exploited by a business... with no liability-protection, no security, and almost zero rights.)
Both can be true! There's a reason I quit that shit years ago.
I’m waiting for the math... Support your claim that you would “make a killing”.
I don’t see how you would...
The most you could possibly make would be $32.50 in an hour... (and that’s ONLY if you had a fare for ALL 60 minutes of an hour... and somehow still made less than $32.50 from those fares).
...And you'd be driving your own car and burning gas for that whole hour...
So show me (with math) how you’d be “making a killing”.
What you're talking about is "waiting to be engaged" versus "engaged to wait."
The drivers are not on set schedules and have no obligation to the company except for the time between accepting a fare and dropping them off. If the drivers were required to return to a staging area and wait for a call the they'd need compensation. But they're not. They can do whatever they want at that point.
When I worked retail I wasn't paid for the time between my shift's end and the next one beginning, but that's what you're arguing for in this case.
I mean, Uber has constructed a model where "waiting for your next fare" and "going home to your partner" look the same in a spreadsheet, and that then becomes the justification for not paying them. It's sleight of hand.
He didn't sit around waiting for a job. He'd go about his business and when his phone pinged he'd decide in the moment if he wanted to do the job.
Sometimes we'd be watching TV and his phone would ping and he'd get up to leave. Sometimes he wasn't interested and he'd let someone else get it.
The issue with Uber, Lyft, etc isn't that they treat their drivers as contractors. People who have they option of when, where, and whether to work and are paid per task aren't employees. The problem is the pay is terrible for what they're doing.
Does an airline baggage-handler only get paid for the “specific minutes” when he is lifting luggage?
What's actually tragic is similar things like this do happen in the air industry
Flight attendants for example are often paid only for hours on the plane. All the time getting to the planes through security screenings doesn't count. All the work they do at the gate before and after doesn't count. It's only hours in the plane.
Because part of the time they aren't being paid at all for their work and a good chunk of that money goes into the vehicle and fuel itself. After accounting for all the unpaid labor hours and expenses, it probably still comes out sub-minimum-wage.
We have it but the trains are catching on fire and derailing and they shut the orange line down for a month to try to fix it. Meanwhile one of our main tunnels is also collapsing so that’s shut down too. My home is one mile from downtown and it’s also directly on a bike path that goes into the city, which is also closed because it’s also collapsing into the mystic river. It currently takes me 40 minutes to get downtown no matter what transit I take including walking.
My wife recently reconnected with a friend from college (20+ years ago) who is legally blind & living in MA. And I recently worked with a MA resident that is legally handicapped. Both of them have, through some state service, access to some number of free Uber rides each month. I know in the Boston area there is/was a state run car service for the handicapped, but using Uber apparently provides much more coverage & flexibility.
As long as the Uber drivers are being paid appropriately for this service I see it as a great service for the handicapped. I’d hate to see them lose it…
They always go after employees who don't obey. Arbitrary decisions are made to crack the whip and remind employees that they're slaves to management. Just another reason why we need unions.
I would say it has more to do with the size of a pool of candidates. If an Amazon warehouse employee is not happy Amazon can fire them and get another one. If an investment banker is not happy the company will accommodate them.
As a software engineer though, while I'm not paid as an investment banker I still feel like I'm paid well, I think my job would be better if it was unionized.
Unions help workers in all positions, but their effect is more noticeable when the worker has comparatively little bargaining power. When workers already have a large amount of bargaining power, such as in most white-collar jobs, unions don't provide as many benefits than if workers have very little bargaining power and are easily replaced, such as in most jobs involving physical labour rather than mental labour.
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