Why is the prevailing attitude in these comments "they have no contract with Uber, they should leave if they don't like it"? Many people in tech have at-will contracts yet when we get articles on HN about bad work conditions we don't just say "well then quit!". I do agree that in the long term these unhappy drivers should look for a different source of income but for now they clearly need uber and as such it's not unfair of them to express their distaste for certain things uber does until they find a better place to work.
Frankly, the entire mentality reminds me of such absurdities as "America, love it or leave it" and "if you don't like it, go to Russia".
Not only are such responses markedly devoid of empathy, they are also bizarrely illogical. Employees and "partners" both have the right to organize and attempt to effect change.
Lastly, all this free market cheerleading also sounds fairly hollow coming from a currently privileged class. I can't help but think attitudes would be different in more trying times.
I'm not sure which bad work conditions articles you're referring to but if you're a developer and your employer is giving you a hard time or being unfair you should quit. That is a much better solution than expecting someone else to legislate some kind of solution to your problem (with all the externalities that usually go along with such "solutions").
I'm just saying that people don't always have the luxury of quitting, especially when you're working because you need the paycheck in the short term which I'm betting is more common for Uber drivers than for software engineers. Like I said, they should quit in the long term if things don't improve but I don't think it's crazy for them to attempt to get their current employer to make improvements before they walk out the door.
Jamie, you know, it's kind of funny that people complain about these driver's "poor" conditions. I took an Uber black car ride about a month ago and chatted with the driver - he works for 6 months and then passes the car to his cousin, while he uses all the money he's earned to chill on the beach in Brazil. Oh, did I mention that he works for ~20 hours, but only 3 times a week, or whenever he feels like getting out of bed? Yeah, the dude wasn't just unhappy, he was overjoyed with the flexibility and ridiculously good pay of his job. But of course, if 10 people chant outside of a building, they aren't just disgruntle losers, they are unhappy because they aren't given then. sigh
I've seen CEOs making millions of dollars act like "disgruntled losers" because they feel they haven't been paid enough. Who decides what is enough? An employee may get paid what you think is a lot, but still not what he thinks is fair, and he may be right. All I can say is -- without knowing which party is right in this particular case - that there are people on wall street making much more money than Uber drivers for much less work; they certainly contribute less to society, if at all.
Why? Because taxi drivers are blue collar workers and people perceive them as commodities who should feel lucky to be employed. It works the other way also. Try getting sympathy from a mechanic because Yahoo wont let you earn 6 figures writing code from your house.
The alternative is that Uber's drivers are somehow entitled to a better deal than they are getting, can you explain how that is the case?
I may not be a blue collar worker but that doesn't mean I expect to be owed any sort of deal from anyone. If I feel like I'm getting a raw deal I'm going to leave that situation and find a better deal elsewhere. It's that simple.
It's really easy when you are intelligent and your core competency is in high demand to view the entire world through rose colored lenses. You have so many choices of where to work that you are treated pretty good on the whole.
A lot of people are not so lucky. Let's not pretend that they have the same advantages and opportunities as we do. When they organize to try to raise awareness that they feel they are being treated unreasonably, let's not pretend like they are somehow evil.
We are a bunch of humans living together on this tiny blue dot. We are entitled to be treated with the respect that any human deserves. Please, try to have a little bit of perspective outside your own experience. There is a whole world of people whose circumstances are far different from anything you can imagine.
Ok, so Uber's drivers aren't being fairly compensated for the immense amount of value they provide to Uber, so they are not whining about it on the internet, they are getting off of their arses and trying to get Uber to fairly compensate them. I fail to see the entitlement here.
The flipside of entitlement is exploitation - Uber are exploiting the low-pay and restricted bargaining power of blue collar workers to their own ends. I think that is far more reprehensible.
As intelligent, fast-learning people in a market that allows for a greater deal of freedom than theirs, it is wrong to judge them. They are in a shittier situation than us, and are trying to change that. Surely we should be admiring them for taking the initiative and doing this?
> I may not be a blue collar worker but that doesn't mean I expect to be owed any sort of deal from anyone. If I feel like I'm getting a raw deal I'm going to leave that situation and find a better deal elsewhere. It's that simple.
They're negotiating for a better deal. They just happen to be using different tactics than you would.
And that's the problem. This whole union-style protest negotiation tactic is absurd. They are not entitled to a better deal as long as other workers are able, willing and qualified to step into their shoes and do the job. You work or you are out, it's pretty simple.
Given Uber's recent history with authority, I wouldn't be surprised if some shady organization employed all these unhappy people to go and protest. Most like, actually.
This supposedly free market anti-labourer rhetoric is absurd: If market participants organise as a company, they seem have every right to negotiate as a whole to get a better deal. What is your problem with just another type of market participant organising and negotiating as a group?
With the drivers acting as a group, the other party would now have to replace most of them (excluding defectors), not one of them, which is more difficult, giving the group a better negotiating position. No entitlement, just free markets and game theory.
Your use of the word "entitled" is truly patronizing. Even from your own free market perspective, in a free market you are entitled to what you can get. If you have money, you are free to use it as you wish, and if you have friends you are free to unionize to try to get as much as you can. It's all a power struggle. One side is not any more entitled to anything than the other. They fight it out.
Also, your use of the word "authority" is wrong. Judging by Uber's recent bouts with elected representatives of the people and democratic institutions, and their relative success, I'm not sure where "authority" lies: with "corrupt institutions" or with "stinking money". To continue your conspiratorial line of thought, I'd say that I wouldn't be surprised if Uber's successes are a result of bribery (In fact, there is more reason to believe the latter, as you and I were both present when a certain man of influence bragged to a large crowd about something along the same lines.)
That's all from the free-market perspective. From a social responsibility perspective, I don't understand why a company feels entitled to fire working people when they like, without a proper hearing.
>And that's the problem. This whole union-style protest negotiation tactic is absurd. They are not entitled to a better deal as long as other workers are able, willing and qualified to step into their shoes and do the job. You work or you are out, it's pretty simple.
That's funny, because in countries where there's no prevalent disdain for trade unions, this tactic actually works and gets workers good deals. This is only absurd for employers, who'd like to get more work done and pay less.
Everyone is entitled to some basic level of human decency in their interactions with others; our society relies on this. And we are also entitled to draw attention, in any legal manner we choose, to a situation where we feel that we are not being treated appropriately. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly is there for a reason, and it's not automatically evil just because you don't agree with the ends.
Freedom of speech and assembly have nothing to do with this. And they're not freedom from repercussions by private actors, but merely freedom from government force.
I personally think tactics like these are counterproductive and that it'd be better to handle it internally.
I'm not sure, but I'm willing to guess that it probably isn't possible to handle it "internally" when you have been fired for a 4.7 rating. I mean, Uber ignored them when they were in front their building. Do you think Uber did that because they thought a phone call would have been more polite?
I definitely don't see how it was counter productive though, if they were standing out there to bring more attention to the situation.
Well that's just fucking dumb. It's a free market with at-will employment, ain't it? These workers are entitled to use what leverage they have as they please, and that includes to organize and strike for better pay and working conditions.
If you don't like it, move to some country where the state actively oppresses workers and suppresses the price of labor for the Greater Glory of Capital. Oh wait, you already live in the United States, don't you?
I've only ever caught one Uber but I wasn't overly impressed. I think the business opportunity wouldn't even exist in the UK because regular taxis are at a similar standard and cost less.
They seem to be hacking the law/industry in order to provide a service some way between taxis and limos at a cost that is just above taxis. But then they expect the drivers to work at taxi wages. If they think students can deliver the same service at taxi driver prices, good luck to them
Über is in London. My experience of London cabs is dated but would be that they are not even close. Drivers can be chatty (but maybe not in the way I want) and knowledgeable, but not always. Cars are not even close. No refreshments, have to fiddle with cash etc. Great app to locate and track pick-up, rating system (in principle, despite this article, a good idea)
That's a pretty binary viewpoint. I'm sure that at some point in my life I'll feel like I deserve a raise or a promotion and I will ask for one rather than just quitting when I don't get it.
Asking for something is a bit different than protesting for it. Typically you'd first ask, and then you'd either get it, leave, ask more, or move on to a more forceful way of "asking" (such as protesting or striking).
So, are you saying that if you ask for a raise/promotion and don't get it, then you will gather your friends around your bosses's cubicle and chant and protest until you get what you want ? That's definitely going to get you a promotion, yeah.
You're either with the startups or you're against them. Supporting workers in this case means you're against the startups, and that's "wrong." Of course HN members don't write that, but people are here in large part to support their passion for startups - don't challenge that or you're gonna have a bad time. Every would-be founder here is thinking they'd can 50,000 taxi drivers in a heartbeat if it meant a shot at the big time.
HN commenters are just people like you and me. They care about people like themselves more than people not like themselves. To HN commenters, Uber's founders are like them and taxi drivers aren't. Of course they're going to side with the company here.
I have gone through my life with one rule, anyone who is providing me a service I address by Sir or Ma'am. I do not care if its the order taker at McDonalds, the register operator at Wal-Mart, or my Doctor. They are people performing jobs whose service I need or may need, I respect anyone out there earning a living for themselves and their families. For myself it puts everything in perspective, we are all trying to make it in this world and there is nothing to gain by disparaging the position of others.
There are times where I really like the people at McDonalds than those I work for, the pretentiousness at times is discouraging.
I'm not so sure. I've always felt there's a quite specific form of elitism among many HN readers. Somewhat similar to what you find in business schools, but less based on privileged and more on a lack of "bildung".
If they hate Uber so much they should stop using it. They aren't obligated to Uber in any way.
The "rampant firing" happens when drivers who suck get poor ratings (below 4.7 and you go on probation according to an Uber driver I talked to) sounds like their own problem not Uber's.
It's not as simple as you state. Uber gets a lot of the business so the drivers won't have work without them. That 4.7 is out of 5 also and it is true about the terminations. I have witnessed the mass firings and how they are handled.
Drivers also can't dispute their ratings so it takes one person to give them a one star which could lead to being fired. And can you truly say all customers are fair in their ratings?
The best thing that could happen for these drivers is having another company open up to compete against uber. Then they wouldn't be a commodity.
If they were not "taxi drivers" than everyone would be furious at how they are treated.
I've never used Uber but that is absolutely insane!! How is that not a management nightmare!? I'm floored that this is seen as good management of their driver fleet.
Working for car services - many of whom Uber has soundly defeated in the relevant cities and no longer exist.
The "if you don't like it, tough!" angle sounds nice, but is untenable in cities where Uber has absorbed the lion's share of the towncar market.
Just because Uber is "one of us" doesn't mean they're scrupulous. I'd be very wary of trading disparate, crappy towncar companies for a single monolithic one with startupy roots.
Working of course which I am guessing you realized?
I am not debating that Uber is a huge help for getting business. I just feel that their employee conditions are not what many others expect in their daily jobs. I don't feel that is wrong.
it seems kind of ridiculous to presume that one rogue one star rating would get a driver fired. i would assume that there is more to firing drivers than simply the rating system – someone must talk to the passenger to figure out what is up.
you need 12 5 star rides to make up for 1 one star and get above 4.7. If your average is say 4.8 (you get 4 or 3 stars every now and then because people assume it's "average"), when you get a 1 star review, you need 37 "normal" rides to make up for it and come back to 4.7. This is pretty insane IMO
That's one of the reasons they are complaining because it is ridiculous there isn't anything set up. Now it might not just be one rogue star rating but maybe a collection of others. But there is no room for error when you can get fired by having a 4.6 and not 4.7 star rating.
I think the douchebag labeling might've backfired? People have been dropping one another emails for years and years. Maybe it's less common where you're from.
This brings up a related point. For a typical Uber ride, do you give the driver 3-stars or 5-stars?
I usually give 5-stars when a ride goes smoothly. But I know people who default to 3-stars (average) unless the driver goes out of his way & is exceptional.
I've considered switching my default to 4-stars for a nice ride, leaving me a 1-star buffer for exceptional service. But using that scale, I wouldn't want a 4.7 driver to get dinged.
You know people use 3-star average for Uber? That surprises me.
One of my earlier Uber rides I decided to go ahead and rate 3 stars because I felt it was a fairly average ride. Pretty quickly I got contacted by someone at Uber who wanted to ask me what was wrong with my ride. When I explained that I felt it was merely average, they told me a simplistic version of what jamiequint said, that they only want to work with the best drivers and therefore 3 isn't an average rating, it's actually a bad rating.
Doesn't it mostly matter that the aggregate ratings for each driver will rank them relative to their peers? Thus the threshold for which drivers are let go is arbitrary and only really correlates with the demand Uber has for drivers. In other words, over time the highest rated drivers will remain employed, the worst won't.
This. We've implemented this on a number of social networks fit reporting nefarious users. Scammers, spammers, etc. to help the community. We found that if a user can report a user with an easy click we were flooded with false positives. Users reporting one another for petty reasons like not replying to messages. The women would report other women seemingly out of spite. We later added an input box that requires a short explanation. The reporting abuse dropped through the floor, and the quality of the feedback from users is far better.
Requiring a short explanation will def put the average rating to 4.
They do. I had a driver who took me on the most roundabout way possible to get to my office. I rated him one star. It popped up a text field entry, I said what happened and Uber credited me the difference.
Then don't attach tips, though maybe this would allow for more accurate reviews? I always give 5 stars, because its easy and all rides have been great.
Only one driver though, provided me with water bottles and candy. That was a superb experience. Maybe the only superb one while the rest were fine.
Really? The "upper-class" people who use Uber (people who are using their expensive smart phones to order the cab, people like ourselves) are averse to tipping well when the service is great? That's disgraceful.
You make it sound like a 5-star rating system is a novel thing, but it's used all over the Internet, and I think most people have a pretty reasonable understanding of the system.
If they are telling riders this, then everyone will end up giving drivers a 5 unless they had a bad experience. This artificially inflates every score such that a 5 score ends lumping in the exceptional drivers with the slightly above average.
Youtube did a pretty interesting article on how they were switching to a thumbs system (like or dislike) after using stars for years and finding people either used 1 or 5. Found it, not as interesting as I recall: http://youtube-global.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/five-stars-domi...
It's all subjective, so it's hard to detail, but a good Uber ride is a far more enjoyable experience than, say, a taxi ride. The driver is courteous and knowledgable, receptive to conversation if I desire it, and quiet if not. The car is in good condition, with plenty of room, typically with some bottled water available if I'm thirsty. Shows up quickly, easy to find. Driver knows how to get where I want and gets me there in a reasonable amount of time. Etc. etc.
Therein lies the problem with 5-star ratings. It's entirely subjective. There's no standard as to what makes an experience a 4-star one instead of a 2-star one. Relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/937/
Personally, I think the "thumbs-up/thumbs-down" system does a better job.
Is it an American phenomenon? In Europe I expect a taxi driver to be quick to turn up, helpful and knowledgeable about the destination.
Granted, I don't expect water.
Well, I don't expect enormous leg room and posh seats, just to be comfortable (and clean). It may depend also what you define by those. Very often the car is a Mercedes so I'm rather fine with that. I actually prefer radio on, but never had the trouble to have it turned down or off when I wanted to call someone or chat with the driver.
Including the water, it's what you get from any livery service in Manhattan. I've only been out the bay a few times, but most car services I called were exactly as described here.
I hope they aren't comparing ratings directly for exactly this reason. They should be using something like z-scores where you measure every rating in standard deviation from the mean for that rater.
Telstra (Australian Telco) internally uses a number rating for B2B sales and sales-support teams, and point inflation has made it useless. The Sales guys end up needing to explain to the customers what the numbers really mean; 8/10 was being left for "great service", but that qualified as a failure by the internal metrics.
(To make it even worse, the management accidentally let the sales meet their target once; some people actually got their bonuses, so upstairs bumped the minimum target score again.)
They have every right to complain (whether or not they stop using Uber). They are (successfully it seems) drawing the wider public's attention to an issue. Low-skilled labour always teeters on the edge of turning into sweatshop conditions (huge working hours, poor security, low pay). This is especially an issue for monopolised industries (like Uber). I'm not sure how bad it is for them really (I live in Australia), but I really don't see how you can take issue with their right to discuss it.
As far as I knew, not being able to complain about conditions was something for China and Africa, not for advanced egalitarian societies...
Not really... I spoke with a driver down in LA once, he got on probation because 2 obnoxious passengers rated him 1 star. One of them was smoking in the vehicle, got told to stop, didn't like it, 1 star... The other one wanted to get to the other side of the city in 45 minutes on a Friday afternoon at 4pm... They didn't make it despite the driver's best effort, so she rated 1 star.
That seems unfair that the driver gets on probation for those 2 instances.
The fact that they are being called partners and not employees is probably something that tax enforcement should look into.
I don't know jackshit about California law on that, but it seems reasonable that this means that the company is:
1. paying less taxes than it should and shifting the cost onto its employees.
2. denying their workers benefits they would be entitled to as employees (401k, healthcare…).
3. denying their workers rights they would be entitled to as employees (maternity leave…).
4. being far too elastic when demand is low. With employees they'd have constant costs even with no customers.
Those are all reasons why we have labor laws, and why at-will employment can work only for the most sought after professions, and not for blue collars.
In the freight transport world, the truckers that work for carriers directly make 1/2 to 1/3 what the independents get. In addition, the independents have the right to chose when they work, so if they want to take a week off, that's their prerogative (no requests required). It's fundamentally, a different arrangement.
The same holds for the software industry if you are a freelancer you make much more an hour than an employee.
On the other hand if a freelancer has only have one source of contracts/income and said freelancer doesn't make significantly more an hour than an employee would, then the employee is getting the short end of the stick.
I'm willing to argue that this kind of outsourcing jobs you should employ people for, should be discouraged by law, either by making it more costly for the employer or by actively forcing employers to hire these not-so-free-lancers.
Probably. Another interesting factoid is that the US is only one of four world countries that doesn't have compulsory maternity leave (some states do though).
I think it's also very pertinent to point out that they in fact aren't employees of Uber. They aren't being denied work or fired, they're being denied from using Uber's service. This is absolutely no different than hell banning a troublesome user on a site.
Of course it's their problem. They're the ones being fired. Let's assume that all customer ratings are merited and that Uber puts in place all of the wonderful suggestions made by other commenters here, that ensure people only give a bad review if it's very well deserved. Now, suppose you're an Uber driver, and you wife has just left you or you've found out that your daughter is sick. I think you'll be having a very bad week at work. You might even be -- god forbid -- rude to a customer. Or, let's not go that far; say your boss has mistreated you or you think your pay is unfair and you're just having a bad day. So you think these cases should mean automatic termination, too. That the driver who lost his wife should lose his job too because he wasn't able to fully maintain his composure and provide the service Uber customers expect. These are not just people -- they are your employees! (de facto if not de jure).
This brings us to the very important question of what a business is for. There are several views on the subject, but I like this one: a company is a social organization constructed for the purpose of providing income to its members, namely its owners and employees. Now, I'm not saying everyone should get the same -- some have assumed a greater risk than others, and the laws of supply and demand are at play when it comes to skills, too -- but the pay should be fair because that is the company's raison d'etre. "The customer comes first" only inasmuch it helps achieving this goal; if you don't treat your customers right, you will lose their business to competitors and will be unable to provide for your employees. But really, it's the employees who come first.
The place of work is a very important social organization, because you spend most of your day as its member. This organization not only provides you with livelihood, but with a sense of respect; for many, what they do and where they work is an important part of who they are.
And that is why when I hear of a business mistreating its customers, I think "that's a really bad business", but when I hear of a business mistreating its employees -- I get angry; that's breaking a social contract, and one with people who are weaker than you and that you have responsibility for. That's why you may dislike that couple down the block who are rude to everyone, but if you heard that your next door neighbors, who are always nice and offer to water your plants when you're gone, are pimping their daughters, you'll get really mad.
Automatically firing your employees based on a few bad reviews (if that's what Uber is in fact doing, according to the information presented), is akin (continuing the family analogy that I'm growing tired of) to kicking your child out of the house for getting bad grades at school. Sure, the kid has a responsibility to learn, but you have a stronger responsibility towards your kid.
It appears that Uber thinks that by not calling their employees "employees" they are somehow absolved from this social contract. They're not. Now, I'm not saying that Uber are definitely in the wrong here because we have not yet heard their side. Maybe those drivers are lazy money-grubbers seeking to exploit their good-hearted, yet gullible, employers. But the allegations sound very serious.
Drivers are not getting cut off after one or two bad rides, they are cut off after consistently low ratings. With a rating threshold of 4.7 an Uber driver can have 7.5% of their rides be rated at 1 star (with the rest at 5) and still meet the minimum threshold. We're not talking about one bad day here. Not to mention that once they drop below the 4.7 threshold they still have 2 weeks to get back above it. There are plenty of Uber drivers who have no problem staying employed, we are just hearing from the vocal minority.
You seem to be implying that by firing under-performers Uber is somehow mistreating its workers. I would argue that's simply false. In environments with literally hundreds of people waiting at the door to take your job the environment is going to be more competitive, and it should be. This is not a blue-collar only thing, sales works the same way in many organizations. It does not mean fired salespeople are being mistreated, its just the way business works.
I really don't agree with your conception of a business as a entity that has social responsibility to its employees. Businesses exist to return value to shareholders, not to employees (although they may occasionally be shareholders also). If treating employees extremely well is good for business (e.g. Google) then businesses will do it. This usually exists in an environment where there is a surplus of demand for the employees you want. If there is a surplus of supply, employees don't tend to be treated like that (e.g. Cable Assembly Factory - a place I once worked for 2 years). Its unreasonable to expect a business to be generous to its employees at the expense of its shareholders, it just doesn't make for a very efficient business or a very efficient marketplace.
> In environments with literally hundreds of people waiting at the door to take your job the environment is going to be more competitive...
True.
> ... , and it should be.
No. A current employee is not a replaceable part of machinery, and should not be treated the same as a prospective employee. The difference is that an employer has responsibilities to their current employees, and little responsibility to prospective employees. Now I'm starting to think that all my analogies to families were not so ill conceived. Hiring someone is not unlike marriage. The fact that there are plenty of fish in the sea, does not mean that your wife should live in a competitive environment. Once you marry her you take it upon yourself to forsake all others -- even if they are better -- unless you wish to divorce, which can be messy, as it should be.
> Businesses exist to return value to shareholders, not to employees.
I don't think so. I know this is how businesses are often described (especially in America), but this is not some universal truth. In Germany, so I've read, employees get up to half of the board seats, with shareholders having a one seat advantage ([1] and [2]).
EDIT:
[Here's a direct quote from [3]: "On the assumption that the primary goal of employers is to maximise profits in the interests of shareholders, codetermination can reorient the company's goals in the interests of workers. A better balance may be struck so that the company interests are not so one sided. For unions, codetermination is part of democratising the economy. It is also a way for workers to better the terms and conditions of their contracts in an orderly and regulated way."
In short, "businesses exist to return value to shareholders, not to employees" is far from being an axiom of society. It is certainly not the necessary order of things or a divine decree.]
> Its unreasonable to expect a business to be generous to its employees at the expense of its shareholders...
I think it is not only most reasonable, but the right thing to do. In fact, shareholders should expect this as custodians of a very important social structure - the workplace. Going back to the family analogy (which seems more apt by the minute), while it is the parents who decide to start a family for their own selfish goals (maybe it's their biological calling, and maybe they think it will give them purpose in life), it is most reasonable, and even expected, that they should be generous to their children at their own expense.
I think both parties, shareholders and employees, should get whatever is fair from their arrangement. What is considered fair should be decided by accepted values and by negotiations, where each party exerts whatever power it has to achieve a stronger position.
It is true, however, that if you stop viewing the workplace as a social contract, it stops looking like a family, and people start looking like replaceable machine parts.
> ... it just doesn't make for a very efficient business or a very efficient marketplace.
> "I think both parties, shareholders and employees, should get whatever is fair from their arrangement. What is considered fair should be decided by accepted values and by negotiations, where each party exerts whatever power it has to achieve a stronger position."
I actually agree with this. In this case the drivers have no power since many other drivers are willing to step in to take their place. Uber has all the power, so they are going to do nothing about what this small group of driver's demands. Life goes on.
> "No. A current employee is not a replaceable part of machinery, and should not be treated the same as a prospective employee."
Unfortunately in this economy drivers are pretty close to commodity labor. If you don't want to be treated like commodity labor its best to not be commodity labor.
> Uber has all the power, so they are going to do nothing about what this small group of driver's demands. Life goes on.
Sure. But I wish exploited workers (I'm not sure this is the case here, but for the sake of argument) could use their meager power to beat the living shit out of the CEO. Maybe even give him a good wedgie. I think that a society that turns a blind eye to exploitation, should also turn a blind eye to the odd board member getting a good shellacking now and then from some able-bodied employees. Life would go on just the same.
> Unfortunately in this economy drivers are pretty close to commodity labor.
So are women. There sure are plenty of them around.
> If you don't want to be treated like commodity labor its best to not be commodity labor.
Yes, if you can. If not, your next best course of action is to work for actual human beings rather than douchebags. Actually, I think this is sound advice for everyone.
> So are women. There sure are plenty of them around.
Conflation FTW.
> If not, your next best course of action is to work for actual human beings rather than douchebags.
So, you are implying that businesses should not fire under-performers if they are not able to get another job because that makes their management "douchebags"? That's patently ridiculous.
> So, you are implying that businesses should not fire under-performers...
Not at all. All I'm saying is, once you've hired people, you have a responsibility towards them. You are quite literally in a relationship with them, a relationship that cannot be taken lightly. At the very least, termination should be a very painful process for both parties.
And yes, management that treats people as a commodity is a bunch of douchebags that, in a more just and virtuous society, would have some or most of their teeth knocked out.
What in the hell are you talking about, knocking teeth out? Why is a current employee, all things equal, "owed" something by management when they underperform relative to another potential hire, or some standard level of performance? The CEO should be beaten for expecting exceptional performance from his or her employees? Why? Should not satisfying the demands of customers be the goal of most businesses? Does this not dictate that employees meet certain criteria that they are judged against, and if they don't meet these standards while others standby ready to take their place... they are, what entitled to not have to earn their position? Absurd. You have a responsibility to satisfy the terms of the employment contract and in so far as an employees work meets the demands of your customers and the standards you've set in place, it's in your interest to treat them well and reward them for their work. Beyond that, I don't see how violence is necessary when if a worker thinks they are being undervalued, then they could by definition sell their labor to someone else and get compensated fairly.
> "management that treats people as a commodity is a bunch of douchebags that, in a more just and virtuous society, would have some or most of their teeth knocked out."
Well then I'm happy that in this society there is jail for people with your proclivities.
Just for those who have the courage to act on them :)
Nevertheless, I'm sure you're only saying that because you believe you are unlikely to find yourself on the side of the exploited. I, myself, do not know what fate holds for me, and have seen too much to put all of my chips on red, so I'd rather promote a society that protects its members from both sorts of violence, physical and economic, or -- to make things more interesting yet still fair -- from neither.
You're right, that's not the way a business' objectives are usually understood in the US, and it's a thought-provoking discussion. I think we could certainly go back to employers having a bit more responsibility towards their employees.
That being said, we need to distinguish business from charity. While a business may have certain obligations to the productive members of its work-force, I don't see any obligations towards the unproductive ones, and that is where the argument crosses the line into charity.
As an employer, I don't give you a paycheck because you're my family member and I want to support you. I do it because we are in a mutually-beneficial relationship. And it couldn't work any other way -- if you stopped firing the bad apples, your business would literally crumble.
> I don't see any obligations towards the unproductive ones, and that is where the argument crosses the line into charity.
No one is arguing that you do, but there's a long, long way from assuming responsibilities towards your employees to charity. It's not a line that's easily crossed.
> I do it because we are in a mutually-beneficial relationship.
Absolutely, but this argument is the one most abused by exploiters. The fact that the worker receives some benefit from the relationship does not mean that the arrangement is fair. Ironically, it is Americans (as well as people in other industrialized nations) who insist on a fair distribution in the ultimatum game[1], while many of them have very strong beliefs about how much exactly workers "deserve".
While I sympathize with the drivers' right to protest for better treatment, I wouldn't characterize these drivers as employees. It sounds like they should be protesting the lack of granularity/ accuracy of the Uber rating system.
Just so you know where I am coming from:
I work in a very similar industry (freight transport), and this model is very common with truck carriers, brokers, independent owner-operators, etc.
I've worked as a contractor at two previous tech companies where I was once an employee, and one of them eventually ended up offering half my rate because I did such a poor job on a particular project (I had lots of personal issues to contend with and was trying to start a business). If I had thought it was unfair, and a systematic way to lower costs, I might have made a stink with other contractors, but I knew it was my own, so I just quit dealing with them.
Just to reiterate my main point:
Contractors are not employees, and the relationship is well defined, and not just to skirt some obligation. It is usually done to align priorities, and assure responsibility and maximum pay for the contractor.
> Contractors are not employees, and the relationship is well defined, and not just to skirt some obligation.
Contracting is a useful economic and social agreement intended to define a more limited mutual responsibility than full employment, just as dating is not the same as marriage. No one would date if it were expected of them to treat their newly acquainted dates with the same responsibilities spouses are supposed to treat each other. On the other hand, what matters (socially and ethically, if not legally) isn't what the relationship or contract is called, but how it's expressed de facto. For example, I'm not too familiar with US laws, but in my country (Israel), courts grant domestic partners the same rights as married couples (when it comes to splitting property, or even when it comes to spouse health insurance), and contractors (or freelancers) are granted the same rights as employees (e.g. severance pay, insurance) if it is shown that they were contractors in name only (for example, if the contractors worked solely or mostly for one employer, or if they were not at liberty to turn down work without expecting immediate termination).
Since Uber's drivers are the very core of its business -- in fact, they are the most crucial "department" in the company -- it seems to me they are actually full employees, and must be treated as such. This is especially true if the drivers work in regular shifts, and are obligated to actually show up to work (I don't know if this is in fact the case; if not, Uber would naturally be less responsible for them).
There are no regular work hours, and nobody is obligated to show up. I know of a publicly traded company that has an almost identical model, but for freight. If you are interested, at a recent transportation conference, the CEO walked the audience through how it works.
It may very well be that in this case Uber is right. I just don't like the sentiment, expressed in several comments, that the workers may do as they please -- leave or stay and shut up -- as long as they don't unionize. Just as the company has the power to control wages in order to maximize profit, so too the employees are well within their right to organize and try to use whatever power they have. This does not automatically make them crybabies.
Having spent a lot of time on HN, I think the demographics here roughly break down to two halves: those who react with empathy to people in weak positions, and those who react with disdain.
The bulk of this discussion (and many others) really just boil down to this.
Sometimes I wonder if the seeming distribution of sociopaths on HN is representative of the general population, or if we have more of them than other communities.
I wouldn't call them sociopaths. Keep in mind that Ayn Rand and her Objectivism have had a strong influence on many Americans, many of them in Silicon Valley. One of her SV fans happens to be Travis Kalanick[1], founder and CEO of Uber, so all this is unsurprising.
I will not try to argue against objectivism or against what some Americans think that libertarianism means. But I will say that what bothers me most about Rand's followers and many who call themselves libertarians, is how they favor some kinds of power over another. In particular, they believe that the use of money or private property -- no matter how harmful -- is OK, or, at least, reasonable and should be allowed free reign, while unionizing, violence and other kinds of power that are usually the only kinds within the reach of the poor, are wrong and should be constrained.
Some even would try to decide what the workers "deserve", while they'll perfectly agree that Mark Zuckerberg deserves whatever he is able to get.
I'm not sure if we disagree - this aspect of the tech industry's folks bothers me, but I see it as sociopathy - or more specifically, a notable lack of empathy for others.
It's not even rationalization most of the time (e.g., "this sucks but it's for the best"), as we see in this post it's outright hostility (i.e., "entitlement", "oh well", "commodity workers", etc).
Technology, and startup money, give people an awful lot of influence and power - I'm bothered by the fact that a large portion of our community strut about with a lack of empathy and respect for the inhabitants of this world. I see many members of this community as miniature would-be robber barons.
It's something I've been thinking about - I don't generally see this trait in people I know from other fields like science or math, not at this incidence rate anyways. Either there are many more empathy-less people (to avoid the s-word) in other fields than I can see, or there is indeed a higher concentration of them in our field. Neither option sits very well.
Well Sam, if I had some issue that I wanted to discuss, and the response I got from you was [take it or leave it/piss off/eat crap/sit on it and spin/go fly a kite]. I might down-vote you.
The fact that the drivers want to negotiate means they clearly like something about working with Uber.
How about - they know Uber is dominating and they aren't going to stop, therefore if the drivers quit they are simply screwed and there won't be any more work for them? This is a free market, so they can start a competitor to Uber and work there together, but if they can't, negotiating by means of protesting isn't really helpful. This looks like a dirty union-type negotiation. Those were great a 100 years ago, maybe, when low wage laborers were really poorly treated, but no more. These guys are taxi drivers, and I am sorry if Uber is cutting their wages a little or firing the bad ones. This is a free market economy and no one said taxi drivers are entitled to anything.
I had a Sidecar driver this afternoon who told me he was suspended by Uber after he had the bad luck to get Travis Kalanick as a passenger, and failed to pick him up on the right side of the street (according to him).
In fact all of these rating and ranking systems (as well as public commenting) cause businesses to have to expend excess time and energy to keep a small vocal percentage of customers happy for fear of backlash instead of concentrating on simply making a good or acceptable product that satisfies 95% of customers. I'm reminded of this sometimes when I read tripadvisor reviews where people go off because there is a bug in their room or the desk staff was having a bad day the particular day they arrived.
I count 25 (or 24 if the guy at right-rear has big hair) people in the picture and I suspect that if there were more than that, they'd have made sure to squeeze them into the shot.
A small group (proportionally) if you look at the number of drivers Uber has. And do they really represent drivers from the other cities served by Uber or is that wishful thinking.
"They don’t have the balls to come down and talk to us" ... maybe because they're busy dispatching thousand of drivers to waiting customers? If Uber is really that hard on the drivers, why don't they work elsewhere? They have no contract, so they're free to go.
I've been a heavy Uber user in SF since they started. I was first in line when they launched Uber X, then Uber cab. I then saw Lyft and Sidecar rise in the city and, honestly, do to Uber in a single month what Uber took about a year to do to the taxi industry. Lyft drivers are more friendly and totally trustworthy. The service is cheaper and there are a bunch of cars all around town. Why use Uber anymore, unless all Lyfts/Sidecars are taken?
To me this is clearly what this is about. Uber is already being disrupted, so they are desperate to lower their costs to be able to compete again. As a guy who literally gave up vehicle ownership just because of these services, all I can say is god bless startup darwinism.
I just got back from San Francisco, where I used Uber for the first time (and continued to use it throughout the trip). I talked to all of the drivers and they seemed quite happy - all had been using the service for over a year, and they had been in the limo business for five to eight years each. They said that now all of their business comes through Uber. However, one stated that there has been a huge increase in Uber drivers, thus making it more difficult to keep busy.
I think that some driver backlash is a normal part of growing, and that Uber should maintain strict quality control.
As far as I can tell this is mostly a consequence of Uber responding to the market (i.e.: competitors like Lyft). With Uber X, Black car drivers no longer have a monopoly on convenient transportation (and from what I hear, that has significantly decreased their business). I can't entirely fault Uber for this...they need to adapt or die.
This is really an irrelevant question - but why does Uber make a big deal out of the colour of the car? They say on their website that a particular tier gets you a black car, and you say there something about black car drivers. Why would you care if your car is black, or red, or yellow, or whatever. I can understand not wanting a fucking pink car or something, but still.
Eg "Hop into the sleek black car", "Our classic black car option is the default". WTF?
Maybe it's a US thing - I'm from the UK and I have no idea why you would need a car of a particular colour.
The vast majority of "black cars" are Lincoln Town Cars made for livery services. They are very comfortable and roomy for a passenger to get into. And not all of them are black, that is just shorthand to say it is a full-sized sedan.
I love the way Uber works and use it all the time. It is hard for me to assess whether they have a legitimate gripe though since every driver I have asked directly about the service (which is every ride I take) has answered enthusiastically positive. Maybe just trying to use their leverage to negotiate rather than being truly harmed?
I haven't used it in San Francisco, but I use DC Uber all the time, and I too have had the same response. That said, I would expect most employees to say good things about their employers, even if that weren't the case.
I know I personally wouldn't ever say anything negative about my employer, even though I personally haven't any cause to.
The Uber drivers I have asked have also all been very positive. I asked one whether he was dispatched by anyone else, and he said that he used to be, but no longer - now he was Uber-only and he was glad he could ditch the dispatcher model.
The guys that own their own cars are not Uber employees - they can sign up to be dispatched by traditional radios instead (or as well). So, from my sample in NYC, Uber is way better than existing models for the drivers.
I used to talk to all my drivers about this, too - an easy conversation prompt to pass the time if nothing else. But while most spoke positively, I began to get the impression that they follow the basic rule of don't bad mouth your employer to customers. Pair that with the risk of saying the wrong things to a secretshopper-type riders, and it's become difficult for me to take Uber reviews from drivers at face value.
Definitely. But the thing that convinced me that this driver meant it was that he previously was dispatched by both radio and Uber, and then chose to go Uber-only. As a sample, it's prone to survivor bias, but it definitely argues that my particular driver wasn't just putting up a front.
Maybe the bad drivers are the ones that are picketing, and you're only talking to good drivers? If the good drivers are pleased with the way Uber works, then maybe they're doing something right.
Taxi drivers are expected to provide a positive environment for their fares. This includes pleasant, casual conversation.
Your driver doesn't know you're deeply interested in tech startups like his employer. Almost all taxi conversations are brief, casual, on the surface. If your next taxi driver took an innocent small-talk question as a chance to air his gripes about his new, better employer, how would you feel at the end of the ride? How are you going to rate that driver? 1 star? Oh shit, now he's canned.
You're getting the only safe answer to your question. For all you know, the drivers are terrified to speak out.
Guys riding around in air-conditioned cars all day calling their working conditions a sweatshop.
What if Uber can't actually pay them what they want? Is the solution to force Uber to not fire any drivers, to pay them more than they're able? And by what insane reasoning should they be forced to pay more? Uber isn't owned by the government, and isn't the sole dispatcher around (and certainly not in SF!).
If Uber's business model can't support paying the drivers more than there's nothing that can be done except for the drivers that don't like the conditions to quit. If that means that Uber then goes out of business, so be it. No amount of protesting is going to fix that.
This is typical when employees try to shake down their employer. They exaggerate their working conditions, and ignore the financial circumstances behind a companies actions.
The major complaint I hear about Uber from Chicago taxi drivers (I like to chat when in a cab) is that Uber only pays them after 10 days. They have to pay weekly rent on their cab, though, which means they can only use Uber when they already have enough money to pay the rent.
I was surprised to go through these comments (including with a command-F) and not find mention of the recent news of the Uber driver charged with raping a customer. While that story was pretty damaging to Uber, it was equally--if not more—-damaging to the arguments made by the protesting drivers. The rape incident is exactly the type of thing that Uber is trying to prevent by being so strict with its drivers (though, admittedly, a rape could still have occurred with a highly-rated driver). For PR reasons, Uber understandably does not want to point out that bad event, but it would be pretty compelling if they said something like, "Drivers, even if it was just one driver who ruined it for all of you, your bad behavior has forced our hand. We have to do everything we can to protect our customers."
The combination of having a relatively low-skill and undifferentiated job (as a driver) and of having no employment protection (as a contractor) is unfortunate.
I feel for these men, but I think their best choice is to find other employment - this protest will lead nowhere.
A very interesting dilemma as a consumer/customer.
I am sure out of the many fired some are legit firings - drivers not respectful or just not good enough. And similarly some who have been short changed by customers giving bad reviews.
So here is my dilemma, wearing the customer hat - if this move by Uber guarantees me that every time I hail a Uber cab, I am guaranteed to get a 4.7 star experience in the minimum (ya sometimes not, but on an average yes). So why wouldn't I want that as a customer?
Now if I wear the hat of a sympathetic human, I can probably see some injustice if I sift through all the firings. So how can we hold Uber accountable?
Being a realist, sometimes one has to understand that many systems don't have equality and maybe in this case the injustice/inequality benefits the Uber customers.
I've used Uber a lot over the past 2 and a half years. I've made a point to ask nearly every driver how they liked the service and I can only recall one (out of dozens) giving anything but praise.
So yeah, does not compute, unless things have drastically changed recently.
I was surprised to see the phrase "Uber Drivers". As I thought I understood it: Uber has no drivers and drivers haver their own companies, simply using Uber as a source of leads for customers. It's like OpenTable for cars, right?
I've used Car2go a lot and would like to see it in SF, but the tighter parking situation in SF worries me. It's annoying when you're paying by the minute and you have to drive around for 30 minutes looking for parking.
car2go, particularly the all-electric networks, is the closest thing we have right now to the electric self-driving roaming taxis that is HN's future of transportation wet dream. There's tons of interesting data in their API about where people go and how people use the cars if you take a bit of effort to mine it. But the coverage on HN is minimal (exactly 26 hits on HNsearch right now) because it's not in SF or NYC or Boston.
Black car service is hardly commodity labor. Corn is a commodity. Oil is a commodity. The difference between a good driver and a bad one is tremendous--the better ones drive confidently and know where they're going, and the bad ones are tethered to their GPS. As a frequent user of Uber (in NYC) I've seen both.
But I understand I'm not paying for a commodity, which is why this concerns me. My relationship with Uber is through its drivers, not their app--I'm just worried they don't understand that.
There are degres of commodity, it does not only apply to raw material, i.e. IT infrastructure is turning into commodity, but you will still find differentials. The range of differentials is what defines if it's commodity or not.
I would agree with the previous poster, drivers are mostly commodity producers. Just like barbers, you might find one exceptional here and then, but generally it's all commodity.
This is how you end up on the path of calling your work force human capital. Don't go down that path.
Your definition would also include entrepreneurs. There might be a good one here and there, but I could just walk into any coffee shop and pick up another one.
London cab drivers demonstrate your point precisely: a lot of specialized training is required, but they're all identical. A somewhat expensive commodity, but a commodity nonetheless.
Never really thought about it that way, but yes, that definition fits. Some are amazingly elite, some are mediocre, and everything in between.
It's what led to lots of development jobs being outsourced to India and similar. Thankfully though it seems that trend is reversing because businesses are finding out what they gain in cost savings is quickly eaten up by lack of quality.
yeah and that's why some programming activities were outsourced to lower wage countries (low end of the 'range' you refer to) a while ago - and still is.
