Uber and Lyft want drivers to buy electric cars. Even as they cut our pay.

benfell

Gig work

There is a new blog post entitled, “Range anxiety, Uber and Lyft style.”

So you know how people have been saying Uber and Lyft need to increase pay to encourage drivers to come back after quitting for the pandemic[1] and how Uber and Lyft have said they would?[2] Guess what? Uber is cutting my bonuses. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t notice.

The last time I called an Uber, because I’d left my car at the shop for routine service, I had to accept an increased fare. And it may be—it’s hard for me to tell—that they’re passing on some of that increase to drivers. But it’s pretty clear my earnings will be down from last week. Because that’s what Uber and Lyft do.[3]

But hey, we’re supposed to buy electric cars, which of course we’ll have to finance,[4] and make payments on. Any idea how that’s going to work when you keep cutting our pay, Uber?

Dale Kasler, “Your Uber and Lyft driver must go electric. California’s latest climate change mandate,” Sacramento Bee, May 21, 2021, https://www.sacbee.com/article251574748.html

Genocide


Also:


The crucial thing to remember is that any attempt to erase a people, whether physically, or culturally, or in any other way, constitutes genocide. It is the erasure, not the means, that is the crucial attribute.[5]

This is happening in Palestine with the Palestinians. It’s happening in Xinjiang Province with the Uyghurs. It’s happening in Burma with the Rohingya. It is likely happening in other places with other people whom I have failed to learn about.

  1. [1]Laura Forman, “Uber and Lyft Need a Sharper Turn,” Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-and-lyft-need-a-sharper-turn-11618311794↩
  2. [2]Faiz Siddiqui, “Where have all the Uber drivers gone?” Washington Post, May 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/07/uber-lyft-drivers/↩
  3. [3]Sarah Jaffe, “The battle for the future of ‘gig’ work,” Vox, May 18, 2021, https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22425152/future-of-gig-work-uber-lyft-driving-prop-22; Farhad Manjoo, “The Uber I.P.O. Is a Moral Stain on Silicon Valley,” New York Times, May 1, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/opinion/uber-ipo.html; Dhruv Mehrotra and Aaron Gordon, “Uber And Lyft Take A Lot More From Drivers Than They Say,” Jalopnik, August 26, 2019, https://jalopnik.com/uber-and-lyft-take-a-lot-more-from-drivers-than-they-sa-1837450373; Kari Paul, “Uber drivers plan shutdown over ‘poverty wages’ as company goes public,” Guardian, April 25, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/24/uber-drivers-strike-ipo; José Rodríguez, Jr., “The Aftermath Of Prop 22 Is Not As Happy As Big Tech Promised,” Jalopnik, February 18, 2021, https://jalopnik.com/the-aftermath-of-prop-22-is-not-as-happy-as-big-tech-pr-1846299686; Alexander Sammon, “Prop 22 Is Here, and It’s Already Worse Than Expected,” American Prospect, January 15, 2021, https://prospect.org/labor/prop-22-is-here-already-worse-than-expected-california-gig-workers/; Faiz Siddiqui, “Where have all the Uber drivers gone?” Washington Post, May 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/07/uber-lyft-drivers/↩
  4. [4]Ben Elgin and Lizette Chapman, “How Uber and Lyft Are Losing the Race to the Electric Future,” Bloomberg, May 10, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-05-10/inside-the-slow-ev-adoption-by-uber-and-lyft; Andrew J. Hawkins, “Uber pledges to shift to ‘100 percent’ electric vehicles by 2030,” Verge, September 8, 2020, https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/8/21427196/uber-promise-100-percent-electric-vehicle-ev-2030; Andrew J. Hawkins, “Lyft vows ‘100 percent’ of its vehicles will be electric by 2030,” Verge, June 17, 2020, https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/17/21294040/lyft-electric-vehicle-ev-100-percent-2030; Dale Kasler, “Your Uber and Lyft driver must go electric. California’s latest climate change mandate,” Sacramento Bee, May 21, 2021, https://www.sacbee.com/article251574748.html↩
  5. [5]David Benfell, “Genocide,” Not Housebroken, June 30, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/06/30/genocide/↩

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