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Uber Drivers Plan Strike To Kick Off 2019's Most-Hyped IPO (gizmodo.com) 90

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Uber drivers in seven US cities are planning protests to highlight what they claim are poor working conditions and low wages at the ride-hailing firm. The drivers say they are paid below minimum wage levels required by some states and barely above national rates. From a report: The richest and most highly anticipated IPO of the year is just around the corner. But a group of drivers dissatisfied with shrinking pay, no benefits, a lack of transparency, and little voice within the company are hoping to turn that singular IPO moment in their own favor by organizing a seven-city strike around the country including at Uber headquarters for 12 hours on May 8 leading up to Uber's initial public offering.
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Uber Drivers Plan Strike To Kick Off 2019's Most-Hyped IPO More

Uber Drivers Plan Strike To Kick Off 2019's Most-Hyped IPO

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  • Immigrants (Score:3)

    by RickyShade ( 5419186 ) on Thursday April 25, 2019 @12:20PM (#58490180)

    Another company that relies on cheap immigrant labor in order to exist and survive.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by grumpy-cowboy ( 4342983 )

      Yes. Like you do when you buy cheap stuff made in China, India, Bangladesh, ... So almost everything.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yes. Like you do when you buy cheap stuff made in China, India, Bangladesh, ... So almost everything.

        I don't think you know what 'immigrant' means.

        • Isn't everything a state of Murica? (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Huh? There are other countries?
          -- Joe "Stereotype" Murican ;)

        • Yes I know what it is. But I'm talking more about using "cheap labor" (immigrant or not). People are hyprocitical when they are so outraged about that (using Immigrants as cheap labor here) but continue to buy cheap stuff built by "cheap labor" overseas (sometimes made by childs!).

          (Sorry for my English)

    • Re:Immigrants (Score:5, Informative)

      by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Thursday April 25, 2019 @12:38PM (#58490344)

      wrong, a lot of the Uber drivers I've been with aren't immigrants but everyday working Americans. One driver recently told me that the reason he did it was to cut down on the number of drunk driving accidents in his city but he barely made $0.40/mi.

  • Markets are magical (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Thursday April 25, 2019 @12:22PM (#58490196)
    I am convinced markets work on magic. Only with magic a company that never made any money, breaks laws in every country, failed and terminated major projects like self-driving cars is worth anything. So delta between negative billions valuation and IPO price can be only explained by magic.

    • Re: Markets are magical (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This magic you refer to is a low cost of capital. A low discount rate, by definition, means that cash flows well into the future carry much higher weight than would be the case of money had a higher cost. Suddenly the narrative / what one can imagine well into the future can have a large effect on prices today. For an old exposition on this, see John Burr Williamsâ(TM) Theory of Investment Value. When money is free, stupidity reigns.

    • Markets work on stupidity. Stupid people buy pieces of a non-profitable company in order to sell it later to somebody stupider than them. Personally, I only invest in profitable companies that pay dividends.
  • Shit stocks start with a spike then plummet, long-term companies start slower and build up over time. This is about as obvious a ploy as it gets to aim for the latter from a technical analysis standpoint, the Uber execs are probably seeding the seeds for this "strike" such that some of their first press releases post-IPO will be about how they are so competent they managed to stop it, though it cut into their "profits" in an entirely understandable way, and then they get to drag it out longer.

    • Shit stocks start with a spike then plummet, long-term companies start slower and build up over time.

      I'm not so sure about that, maybe you just have a different measurement for "slower". Apple's IPO back in 1980 was the largest since Ford went public back in 1956, and it's currently valued at $206 and one of the largest companies in the world; same could be said for Google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • the way strikes work is with Solidarity. You form large, national Unions. That way when your on strike the Union gives you money to live. Then you pay your dues while you're working and your buddies in another state can do the same.

    Uber drivers are mostly folks who lost their jobs to outsourcing and still have a decent car left over from when they had a job. They're paycheck to paycheck. They can't afford to strike. At most a few thousand of them will take a day off and result in surge pricing.

    • Uber drivers are mostly folks who lost their jobs to outsourcing

      Nope. Most Uber drivers are people looking for extra money from a part-time gig. Only 20% drive full time.

    • Uber drivers are mostly folks who lost their jobs to outsourcing

      Can you please provide a citation for this, because it sounds anecdotal. The vast majority of Uber/Lyft drivers I've met have other jobs or are currently students.....(guess what, that's anecdotal as well).

    • not even a "strike", Uber could fire their ass for not working, and be in the right to do so. They have no such right.

      • Uber could fire their ass for not working, and be in the right to do so. They have no such right.

        If Uber fired them for not working, it would totally destroy their "contractors not employees" line of BS. And if they became employees... well, Uber's business model just took a huge hit.

        • you have misconception about contracting, they too can be fired for refusing to work. Uber can end their employment.

          If they had a union and that union negotiated something, that would be different, but they have nothing.

  • Case in point anecdote: When my wife and I went to England last year from Houston to visit my family, I didn't want to leave my car in the long-term lot at IAH, so I hired a limo to take us to IAH. I did this for a couple of reaons: 1. My wife has never enjoyed a limo ride; 2. It was our first holiday together as a married couple, so I wanted to treat her.

    I could have hired Lyft or Uber, but I disagree vociferously with how the latter in particular does business. They're dodgy as hell. They track users. The

  • Let me do that at work and then I'll have sympathy. You can uber drive someone to work as you go to your job. You can click off and work an 8 hour job with benefits then on the way home click on again. Fucking click off if you hate what Uber pays you for your contractor work of pressinng a pedal. Guess what.. if half of you clicked off then Uber would pay those left over more. It is a flooded market because anyone can do it.

  • What did you expect? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The richest and most highly anticipated IPO of the year is just around the corner. But a group of drivers dissatisfied with shrinking pay, no benefits, a lack of transparency, and little voice within the company are hoping to turn that singular IPO moment in their own favor by organizing a seven-city strike around the country.

    Honestly, what were you expecting?

    Uber came onto the scene, claiming taxi and labor laws don't apply to them because they smeared themselves in magical unicorn poop.

    Uber drivers were a

  • If you don't like the working conditions and/or pay at the Uber taxi company, go work for someone else.

    It's that simple.

  • Let me get this straight.

    So a company developed a carpooling app because someone realized that technology has reached the point where literally millions of tons of fuel (and therefore cash) could be saved by linking people going to the same place at the same time together. It was not that people were unwilling to carpool to work with their neighbors, but they needed someone else to set it up and work out all the details.

    Now people have spent 15 minute signing up for a online account on Uber, and feel like t

  • If you don't like it .. quit and get a real job. You wanted to set your own hours and work at your leisure by doing something billions of people around the world know how to do .. drive a car.

    Get some skills and get a real job if you want a real salary. Stop blaming others because you aren't motivated enough.

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