Uber Drivers Confront Challenges Working For A 'Faceless Boss'
Uber Drivers Confront Challenges Working For A 'Faceless Boss'
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/09/532288993/uber-drivers-confront-challenges-working-for-a-faceless-boss
June 9, 20174:38 PM ET | Heard on All Things Considered
While Uber says you can "be your own boss" — that's their viral tagline — hundreds of drivers tell NPR it's not true. They say Uber feels more like a faceless boss — setting strict rules and punishments, but eerily hard to reach, even in emergencies.
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SHAHANI: The myth about Uber is that drivers don't really matter because Uber will have driverless cars soon and also that the biggest workplace crisis is sexual harassment, the way women in the corporate office are treated. But according to employees and investors, Uber feels far more threatened by its broken relationship with drivers. Self-driving fleets will take years, so humans matter.
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At a startup like TaskRabbit, for example, the people providing a service set their own price and define what work they'll do. The company doesn't control those things. But at Uber, the company sets the price and designs the services, like UberBLACK and X and POOL, and those services are core to the brand.
WEIL: Yeah, it looks a lot like an employment relationship. It looks like a very sophisticated, branded product provider.
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