In the past few years, we’ve seen an explosion of what has popularly been called The Sharing
Economy.
For those unfamiliar, this is a loose term for apps like Uber, AirBnb, and TaskRabbit,
that facilitate peer-to-peer economic interactions.
In other words, instead of paying the Marriot for a hotel room, we pay Raul, and give a
nominal fee to AirBnb for connecting us with Raul.
From Uber’s perspective, the narrative around this revolutionary shift in economic relations
is that it’s radically improving our lives.
Not only can consumers in urban areas find rides faster than ever, but workers too are
provided with new flexibility, and in some cases higher income than other minimum wage
jobs.
Here’s co-founder Travis Kalanick arguing just that:
Now full disclosure, I’m not saying I completely disagree with Kalanick I myself drove for
Postmates before I had a full time job.
And it truly was very liberating driving whenever I wanted, turning the app on and off as I
pleased.
But even though there are a few added conveniences for drivers, that’s not the whole story.
The important subtext when Kalanick argues that he’s improving workers’ lives is
that he’s claiming to really care about his company’s effect on the quality of life
for workers in the 21st century.
I encourage you check on my video on what I call the “enlightened brand,” because
it’s as relevant here as ever.
Basically, not only is Uber selling their product, but, like apple, like google, they’re
also selling a brand image that claims to care about society as a whole, to foster a
revolutionary spirit, to be a force of progress and improvement for not just their profit
margins but for everyone, drivers and riders alike.
The problem is, when you investigate just little bit further into Uber’s relationship
with their drivers, this image of themselves as an Enlightened Brand completely falls apart.
Though there are a number of topics I could explore with this company, in this video I’m
going to focus in on the debate over whether or not Uber drivers deserve normal employees
benefits, like health care, pensions, minimum wage, and paid breaks.
Now, on its face, this topic might seem like a no-brainer.
Under the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), full-time employees at
companies with 50 or more workers are eligible for benefits.
A full-time employee is defined as someone who works at least 30 hours a week or 130
hours a month on average.
So, anyone who drives for Uber for at least 30 hours a week should get employee benefits,
right?
Well, turns out it’s not that simple, because instead of calling their drivers employees,
they call them “partners”, and they classify these partners as independent contractors.
What this means is that uber isn’t employing their drivers, they’re simply hiring a fleet
of independent drivers on a task-by-task basis.
So now, the millions of dollars large corporations usually spend to provide their workers health
care, paid breaks, and pensions, is coming directly out of the pockets of those workers.
Now the law defines an employer as one who has “the power or right to control and direct
the employee in the material details of how the work is to be performed.”
And Uber clearly does have meaningful control over its drivers.
If drivers fall below the minimum average rating that Uber decides upon, they can be
banned from the app.
The fares are negotiated by Uber, not by the drivers.
And drivers need to abide by Uber’s standard of conduct.
Here’s a text message received by a driver that says their account is being put on hold
for displaying advertisements for other ridesharing companies.
Here’s one that reprimands a driver for cancelling too many rides in a day.
And whether or not you think these are reasonable or unreasonable standards of conduct, it’s
clear that they are in fact standards of conduct.
They constitute control over the details of the work to be performed.
And many courts agree.
In 2015, a California court ruled a woman was owed thousands in employee benefits by
the company for just two months of driving.
A similar decision came in 2017 from a Brazilian court, who determined that Uber owed a driver
$10,000 in compensation for overtime, night shifts, holidays, and expenses like gasoline
and water.
An even much more impactful decision came from the UK in November of 2017, when a London
court reaffirmed that the company’s workers must be considered employees, and are therefore
entitled to standard employee benefits.
But Uber, who tries to maintain the image they care about their drivers, is appealing
the decision, determined not to offer their workers the most basic company benefits.
And even worse, instead of spending money on those benefits, Uber instead spends massive
amounts on lobbyists to convince local authorities around the world to let them continue conducting
business in this way.
In fact, researchers found that Uber and Lyft deployed more lobbyists in 2016 than Microsoft,
Amazon, and Walmart combined.
Uber spent 1.2 million dollars on lobbying efforts in just the first half of 2017, doing
everything in their power to avoid any regulation around their new business model.
So the narrative that they’re a company of the people for the people is kind of, well,
um, bullshit!
And this is important across the board with the rise of tech companies who claim to be
revolutionizing our world.
[insert apple ad] Yes, they’re certainly profoundly changing our day-to-day existence,
but in a world in which Apple installed nets around their factories to avoid mass worker
suicide, in a world in which Google is helping the Pentagon build AI for their drones, in
a world in which Uber spends millions in order to avoid paying their drivers minimum wage,
it’s important to remember that new technology is not the same as revolutionary spirit.
Though Uber would like to be seen as a progressive company saving the world one ride at a time,
in many ways these ride-sharing apps really just exploit workers in new, innovative ways