from Hacker News

Uber is treating its drivers as sweated labour, says report

by haliou on 12/9/16, 2:39 PM with 7 comments

• by superninja234 on 12/9/16, 7:29 PM

  If you find yourself making less than minimum wage, then get a job making minimum wage. They aren't that hard to find.

  While that still leaves the problem of not being paid nearly enough at least you get breaks, predictable pay, and the ability to slack off a bit without directly losing money.

  I find it hard to feel sorry for people who latch on to a losing strategy and never look at other options.

• by taxicabjesus on 12/9/16, 3:56 PM

  > “Minicab drivers throughout the UK have been exploited by operators for years but Uber’s entry to the market has accelerated a race to the bottom.”

  My fellow taxicab drivers found it easy to complain about the company I drove for, but I thought they tried to be as fair as possible. For example, on my fourth day of driving the dispatching system went down for a good part of the day. I was given a credit for that day's lease, so I did pretty well.

  The independent contractor model was adopted by the taxi industry because initiative is what makes the difference between making money and not. If the company paid drivers minimum wage, there'd be no incentive to work the system to make as many trips as possible.

  I think limousine companies, and those blue airport shuttle vans, are able to pay their drivers hourly because they have scheduled pickups, and the driver can be rated on making it to his/her pickups on time / etc.

• by vivekd on 12/9/16, 3:50 PM

  Maybe that's odd in the States but here in Canada most jobs that an individual can get without a degree or experience would fit into the category of sweated labour. Many people are working multiple jobs to get by because a single income simply isn't enough. The uber drivers are not being forced to drive for uber, they are driving out of their own free will, given this, I don't know how reasonable for someone else to step in and take away what is likely a means to supplement income for a lot of these people until they can find something better.

• by Eridrus on 12/9/16, 9:51 PM

  The issue with driver compensation almost always depends significantly on the costs employees are incurring to drive these trips.

  In particular those drivers that buy or lease a car just to drive for Uber seem to struggle. The money seems fine if you already have a car.

  I realise that Uber does a bunch of things to undermine this such as encouraging drivers to lease cars and having stringent requirements on the type of car they are driving, but maybe we should be complaining more about that than the revenue they get from Uber.