'I made $3.75 an hour': Lyft and Uber drivers push to unionize for better pay

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/22/uber-lyft-ipo-drivers-unionize-low-pay-expenses

‘I made $3.75 an hour’: Lyft and Uber drivers push to unionize for better pay

Michael Sainato

Fri 22 Mar 2019 06.00 GMT

For over a year Rob Mead has worked as an Uber driver in Reno, Nevada, to supplement his income as a public sector worker. Now he’s wondering if it is worth it. “After gas, added monthly rideshare insurance, wear-and-tear, constant oil changes and taxes that $300 for 30 hours of work I thought I made in a week actually averages down to about $90 after expenses,” said Mead.

“A few weeks ago I drove four passengers in a one-hour period. I looked at my profits and I made only $12 It was snowing, traffic was crazy and I basically risked my life to make that $12. After expenses I made $3.75 that entire hour.”

Mead’s wages contrast sharply with the fortunes that the executives at the rideshare companies Uber and Lyft are about to reap. This week Lyft started its investor roadshow as it prepares for its stock market listing. Lyft’s cofounders, Logan Green and John Zimmer, stand to make hundreds of millions from the sale, currently valued at $23bn. Uber plans to follow Lyft’s initial public offering (IPO) in April – a share sale estimated to be worth $125bn that will create a new generation of millionaires and billionaires from its executive class.
(snip)

Uber and Lyft are planning to give some long-term drivers money to buy stock, granting them access to the hotly anticipated IPOs. But only a minority will be eligible and in the meantime drivers are organizing for better wages rather than bonuses.

“I’m not interested in what stingy package they’re going to offer,” said James Hicks, an Uber driver in Los Angeles for about four years. He has not heard anything from Uber regarding stock grants for drivers, but said he had recently had his pay slashed by the company. “You can’t tell me a billion-dollar company can’t afford to pay their drivers when all they really need to worry about is marketing and upkeep of the app.”
(snip)

[Omaha Steve]

1. K&R!

[democratisphere]

2. Ride share drivers have all of the expenses and are making next to nothing

while beating up their equipment. Few ride share patrons provide the drivers with tips to supplement their income. I don't see the driver's position getting any better and ride sharing is not a viable business for the hard working drivers. It is always about transferring wealth to the wealthiest.

[we can do it]

3. Why did anyone buy the bull from uber and lyf in the first place?

[cstanleytech]

4. Probably because they have nothing left to lose and were hoping it would help them.

[customerserviceguy]

9. P. T. Barnum

knew the answer to that question.

I will never use illegal taxi or illegal hotel services. And I sure as hell won't provide them.

[we can do it]

11. Exactly this.

[James48]

5. I must be a sucker.

I would not dream of using Lyft without giving a significant tip to the driver.

I always tip like AT LEAST 20 to 30%, or a minimum of $5 on a short ride of $10 or less.

$40 trip to the airport? I wouldn’t consider less than a $15-$20 tip.

Am I that unusual?

[Honeycombe8]

6. Do they have economical cars, is my first question.

Just to know, since that's a big factor.

I've always maintained that using your own car for a job is generally not a good idea, if only because it puts you on the streets so much more so that the odds of getting in an accident skyrocket, which would increase your insurance, plus expose you to injury. The wear and tear and increased mileage on your car also devalues it, which costs you.

Same thing as pizza delivery.

[c-rational]

7. It started for me with the Walmartizatioin of America. Now it is the Corporatization of the World.

Regulation, fair taxation, and a rewrite of this false notion that an individual and a corporation are equivalent - hogwash.

[LittleGirl]

20. Bingo!

That’s it exactly.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. I Looked Up The Valuations On These 2 Firms

There is an investor mania at play here.
Uber had $2.8 billion in revenue & lost $890 million, but most recent pre-IPO value is $120 billion.
Lyft is much smaller, but revenues are more than half but appear to be reasonably profitable.
But, there is no economic underpinnings to these high values so on public sale, the execs and founders are going to be obscenely wealthy without the actual fundamentals to support it.
So, I looked up 3 articles on each, regarding the risk to the investor.
They all tell investors to be very cautious. One article made a VERY sharp point that neither company has ANY intellectual property. Weak sauce for sustainability, IMO.
That kind of tells me the investors are going a bit crazy related to these 2 companies, which are essentially a taxi variant.

[fescuerescue]

10. Definitely investor mania. but mania that is paying off

But bear in mind that it's venture capital firms that are doing the investing. Also Uber and Lyft are heavily leveraged by the VCs. While the execs at these companies will do well, it's the VC firms that will reap 98% of the windfall.

The value in these companies has never been the I.P. Literally the IP can be replicated by a small team of coders in a few weeks. The value in these companies is that they essentially OWN the new worldwide Taxi market. Taxi companies have always been regional, carry heavy expenses and barely profitable.

The value in Lyft and Uber is that they created and own a worldwide taxi industry. Previously there were tens of thousands of local taxi companies. Now it's a worldwide industry owned by two players.

Those VC investors? they might be crazy, but they are crazy investors who'll earn 120 billion'ish.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. IPOs Are Directed To The General Public Too

Small people doing "get rich quick" are going to get killed

[fescuerescue]

18. Only the shitty ones

A big clue that it's not a good IPO is when anyone can participate.

in an IPO, it's the original investors selling the company (or a portion) to the public. The original investors in these two companies will make BANK BANK BANK as they sell to everyone trying to get into this IPO.

[MineralMan]

12. The real question is what are the total fares charged those

passengers, compared to what the driver is paid. Margins are everything in business.

If he made only $12 in an hour driving four passengers, the question is how much did those passengers pay for the ride. All business requires you to subtract all expenses before calculating your profits. That's how it works.

Since I have no idea what Lyft fares are, I have no idea what his passengers paid and thus have no idea what the margin is between that and his actual receipts for the work.

Lyft got whatever money he didn't get from what they paid, minus card processing fees. Lyft has other overhead as well. However, I suspect that Lyft does better for that hour with four fares than the driver does.

Lyft does not pay its drivers at all. Its drivers are private contractors. Lyft pays a royalty on fares it collects from passengers. The driver has to subtract cost of doing business from that royalty. Such arrangements almost always benefit the company far more than its individual private contractors who provide the actual service. What that driver reports doesn't surprise me at all.

[madville]

17. Around here it's about $4 per mile

A four mile ride to the airport here is $16 and I tip it up to $20.

Two miles home from the bar, usually around $8.

I don't see how they make any money, sounds like they don't these days.

[trev]

13. I drove for Lyft for a short time.

I made next to nothing, and never received a tip--not even when I had multiple passengers on a ride.

I hated the job, and didn't keep it very long once I saw how little I was getting from it.

[Opel_Justwax]

14. The lyft & Uber drivers are just a stepping stone for their fully robotic & automated car services.

Soon automated cars will be taking over the place of all these drivers. Then they will be left with nothing. Of course 40% of the employed population over the next few years will be replaced by robotics and automation. We can all live in a shanty towns while the 1% party in their hilltop mansions.

[MichMan]

19. Or some people will learn the skills to design, build, program and repair the robots

They will be in demand everywhere and most likely do very well for themselves.

[mainer]

16. Lyft prices are ridiculously cheap for riders

I always tip 30% and even then it's inexpensive. They need to raise the rates for rides so drivers get paid more.

I take Lyft because it's the most convenient, and you can never find a taxi when you need one.