- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Lyft and Uber say they will leave Minneapolis if the mayor signs a minimum wage bill for drivers::Lyft and Uber threatened to stop doing business in Minneapolis after the city council adopted a new rule Thursday that would set a minimum wage for rideshare drivers.
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Oh no! Businesses whose ‘innovation’ is doing end runs around labour law, leaving? How sad.
And whose business plan is to use VC money to undercut existing taxi services and drive them out of business so that they can increase prices to a profitable point (and beyond!).
I have little sympathy for the taxi companies. They were terrible at what they did for so long. I can still remember the last two taxi rides I had in my life.
Me stuck a 5 minute drive from work. Every cab company I call wants 40 dollars and only in cash. Why? Because it crossed a town and county line. It took 4 calls before I found one that would take plastic.
A year later going to the airport and I am fighting a migraine. No AC, cab was filthy, ads are blasting, and smelled. Hey can you turn off the advertisements? I can’t. Buddy I have a really bad headache can you please turn it off? I can’t do that. I will give you five dollars to turn it off. It goes off.
Yeah, it wasn’t like the taxi industry was all sunshine and flowers before Uber existed. I cheered them on in the fight for a while before realizing they weren’t my champion but just wanted to replace the existing taxis with their own and had to hike up prices eventually because they were losing tons of money in the meantime.
The “labor laws” you reference only exist to give taxi companies monopolies and provide worse experiences for everyone involved
Still better than the ‘gig economy’. If making worker’s lives more precarious makes your life better, fuck your life.
The gig economy is less precarious for the people that choose it because it fits their schedule. That’s why they choose it. Jobs aren’t exactly hard to get right now - they’d do something else if they wanted to.
Also uber drivers don’t make less money than taxi drivers. On average, they make about the same.
Taxi: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-TAXI-CAB-Driver-Salary-by-State
Uber: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-UBER-Taxi-Driver-Salary-by-State
That just compares salary, what about benefits?
Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
If your business can’t afford to pay a living wage it shouldn’t exist.
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Uber was notorious for moving into and operating in certain cities illegally.
*all cities
Not all, they were kicked out from Hungary - although that was less a victory of workers’ rights rather than that of the taxi driver union.
Every argument in this thread is basically taxi protectionism.
I mean, I see you personally talking about taxis a lot
I don’t like protectionism.
Kinda just sound like a conspiracy nut finding arguments where there are none with people who are just talking about the article
That’s certainly a take.
You’re like… The only one talking about taxis, everyone else is talking about worker protection
That’s nonsensical, since workers drive for both.
Taxi companies tend to be smaller, more locally owned businesses with actual employees instead of “contractors.” Why would we *not side with them?
Edit: missed an important word
I noticed when I visited Vancouver, BC there were no uber’s or lyft’s available, however - uber eats was available. And most restaurants I walked past had uber eats signs in the windows saying they did delivery. And this was in like 2018
Yup. And now the founder is rich when he really should be in jail.
Bye bye Lyft. Bye bye Uber.
Cool, Columbus Ohio’s bus system offers a subsidized version of Uber and while it sucks in service area the idea and price both make perfect sense for Minneapolis to adopt.
Rideshare apps aren’t the solution, effective and adaptive public transportation is. Public transit based rideshare is a great way to fill in the gaps of bus and train systems and to push them to fill their own gaps.
And when all else fails, unionized taxi services.
Sometimes Silicon Valley feels like the monorail man
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Public transit is good where I live and I know it’s not good everywhere but I would so rather take the bus or train over uber and lyft. I only take ubers and lyfts if I have a coupon or I absolutely have to take one because its 3 am and there’s no other way to get home.
Sometimes Silicon Valley feels like the monorail man
Just don’t look up what they’re planning to build for the airport connection in San Jose…
Proper ride sharing would be awesome. It’s love if I could come to work by using an app to find someone going the same way as me and getting a lift.
Public transit based rideshare is a great way to fill in the gaps of bus and train systems and to push them to fill their own gaps.
That is what I am hoping for. I don’t know how many times I see an empty bus or would save so much time if I could just get from one local station to another instead of going all the way to a main hub and back. The ride share companies are collecting all this data on where populations really need to go. If we could somehow use them for last leg of distance, route bridges, and filling in lines that are over served.
I am not sure what exactly the best way to structure this but we do have policy experts so that is there job. Some form of public-private partnership.
Sometimes Silicon Valley feels like the monorail man
I see no down side here. Taxi unions existed long before Uber and Lyft undercut the hell out of them.
Those taxi unions had a monopoly in the areas they served (which was far smaller than Uber and Lyft’s service area) and their prices reflected that.
If Uber and Lyft leave there’s one thing sure to happen: a lot more people dying from being hit by drunk drivers.
This isn’t a good thing any way you cut it.
dog what
dude there are like… other rideshare apps
and taxis still exist
and Minneapolis has an effective (for America) transit system
there are so many options in place before breaking the law
and if paying a living wage is not possible for Uber or Lyft, maybe they shouldn’t be in business
Honestly exactly this, if a business is impossible to exist without exploitation then it straight up shouldn’t exist, and if that means our economy can’t exist, it needs to be rethought so goods and services exist to be goods and services, and not a money making scam.
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Wage slavery is an unacceptable form of drunk driving prevention.
You’re doing a terrible disservice to those people who were, and still are, actually enslaved by using that term.
Yeah but the comment wouldn’t be quite as snippy without the hyperbolic phrase.
Good.
Move out of the way for employers willing to follow the law.
Also side note, why don’t they already have a minimum wage mandated by nationwide law?! Do people not get basic human rights over there? What the actual fuck is wrong with these people?
If you took away our minimum wage we would topple the bloody government, and that’s coming from England where we hardly get excited over anything. But, that would be an unprecedentedly evil, evil thing to do, with gigantic wide ranging negative effects across the whole nation the likes of which we’ve never seen.
We do have nationwide minimum wage. These companies get around it though because they drivers are “contract workers” not employees of the company. In every meaningful way, this is bullshit. It let’s them not be required to pay the workers though.
Ok calm down beans on toast we get it. If you really care about the nuance of it all over the outrage factor… Well the Internet exists so all that info is out there just waiting to educate ya!
This mindset of catering to companies is infuriating. They took the risk creating the business, if they are no longer able to afford to pay wages or have competitive prices they don’t deserve to remain open. That’s the whole fucking point of the free market. Let these companies fail, the country and the economy will recover and new companies that fill current niches and needs will pop up.
These companies bled investor money for years acquiring market share with their long term viability plan being that self driving cars were around the corner. They’ve been waiting to fire all the drivers but they got grifted by Elon types into thinking self driving tech was imminent.
They didn’t think they’d still have to pay people. Those salaries were supposed to be a temporary loss leader
There’s no way the plan was ever to actually create a fleet of high tech cars they own and maintain themselves, which depreciate over time and eventually have to be replaced. Surely that was just a lie to get the money.
I don’t think there was exclusively one solitary sort of fuckery afoot
Oh no, there will be small local taxi companies instead of some random multi-million dollar corporations, how bad! And people won’t have to download their trashy apps that are filled with trackers.
I actually think the app was the best part of Uber (not necessarily the Uber app, but the concept). In my city it used to be annoying to catch a taxi; you either had to line up at a rank, or call and wait and hope that your taxi turned up. Apps allowed you to order a car to wherever you were - normally with just a few minutes notice. I rarely use either now but I believe that taxis have comparable options now.
I prefer apps too, but I don’t want to install corporate spyware on my phone, just to call a taxi. Thankfully both Uber and Lyft have pretty good web apps, and never have to let them touch my phone.
If y’all can pay a living wage, y’all can’t do business. Tired of this shit.
I think we should seize all of Lyft and Ubers assets and use them to construct actual public transportation in USA
What assets? All they have is debt and maybe some servers. I guess the app and brand has some value, but only to another ride share company.
They have corporate employees beyond the drivers. They likely have offices and such.
They likely rent, so the most you are getting is a fee.
If we’re talking total fantasyland, I suppose put those employees to work building a government backed alternative or an open platform to allow smaller companies?
Suppose you had a centralized federated system where states or municipalities or even companies could have their own drivers but it’s a common app?
Edit to add you could also have both driver and passenger rate each other and allow both to filter by rating, lower ratings would naturally pay more or less to compensate for the service. I bet in cities you’d have luxury versions of the same services all from the same app, but also cheap shitty services too.
The existence of Uber and Lyft does not prevent the government from doing this. If we are paying people to build and maintain this process we may as well hire people to do so. Taking over Uber would lead to the best employees leaving for other tech companies.
I think you’re underestimating how many people want to work for the government for the perceived benefits. I’m saying they have the stuff already set up, in fantasyland it would be a fairly smooth transition.
They don’t own the cars, they don’t hire employees. We’d be left with an app? Some servers? We don’t need that stuff to run a decent public transportation service.
love this idea. Wish I knew how to do that lol
Better off seizing taxis and the cars they own, but ultimately, why would we do that? Pass legislation to make them comply
Oh no!
Anyway…
So the law works.
