Just after 10 a.m., dozens of ride-hail drivers swarmed the Safeway parking lot at 16th Street, a presence that dwarfed the grocery store’s modest Monday morning traffic. They wore T-shirts with the words “United We Rise,” picked up signs or cups of Starbucks coffee, and started their protest.
More than 50 drivers formed a more-than-block-long caravan just before noon today, driving from the Mission Safeway to Uber’s headquarters in Mission Bay.
While the protests have been going on since Feb. 14, today’s protest drew new enthusiastic recruits who said they would be back to demand fair pay, improved driver safety and an end to unfair deactivation, a form of dismissal from ride-hailing companies that drivers argue is arbitrary and has threatened their livelihoods.
“A lot of [ride-hail drivers] are sleeping in their cars. There’s a lot of homeless in this industry, while these corporations keep all the money. This is not fair for all of us guys,” said Cesar Palancares, speaking into a loudspeaker. Palancares is a field organizer with advocacy groups Gig Workers Rising and Working Partnerships USA, two groups that have been mobilizing drivers for the last six years.
The newcomers to the protest raced to show each other screenshots of trip orders that paid especially badly.
“$16 from the airport in San Francisco,” one driver said.
“You get a ride from San Francisco to San Jose for $40. And then you have to drive 49 miles,” said another.
“If they are going one mile away, they offer you $4 for the ride,” said a driver. “Just imagine yourself driving to pick up somebody for $4.”
“You know Uber is paying $55 from San Francisco Airport to Napa. It’s about a two-hour drive. And you have to pay $14 of toll,” a driver, Omar Lopez, who joined from Burlingame, cut in.
The hope was that protesting could improve their situations.
“We are investing our time to see if these guys can listen to us, and do what they have to do to pay us better,” he said. Lopez pocketed $170,000 in 2023, thanks to his Tesla and 70-hour work weeks.
But he’s not seeing that happening this year.
This is the second time in six weeks that Mission residents witnessed a ride-hail drivers’ caravan go from the 16th Street Safeway to Uber and Lyft’s headquarters. The Safeway is an ideal starting place, as it’s spacious and not far from the corporate offices, according to Palancares.
They plan to replicate this same protest every couple of months “until it’s done, until it works,” said Jason Munderloh, part-time Lyft driver and volunteer organizer, who said he and other drivers have not received any response from either Uber or Lyft so far.
“Even if things aren’t getting better, we can help prevent things getting worse,” said Palancares.
What if drivers get tired of this endless fight? Munderloh doesn’t think that’s likely. The protests just take up a day every couple months, he said, but drivers are “in our cars, and we’re angry every day.”
Others agreed. “I want to do it again, because I was in tears, and I looked behind me, and the driver behind me was also crying,” said Kimberley Mixter, a ride-hail driver from Los Gatos. “We are suffering. I was crying, because we’re actually doing something about this.” Mixter said she made $57,000 last year, meaning she could not contribute “anything” to her household. And, at 52, she has few other options aside from driving for Lyft and Uber.
Another reason for the protests: Camaraderie. “One of the reasons why we do this is to get people to see each other, just to actually be able to talk to each other in a way that we don’t always do,” Munderloh said while leading the caravan on 16th Street at eight miles per hour. Along the street, pedestrians stopped and stared at the caravan, taking photos and videos. “Because we’re all in our cars.”
An Uber spokesman wrote in an email that the company had provided “a pathway to appeal deactivations.”
“ … Protecting drivers from false allegations are significant improvements we’ve made which are inspired by driver feedback as part of our commitment to make the Uber platform the safest and fairest platform,” the statement said.
Lyft pointed to several new driver features released in February, including “a new earnings commitment” and “an improved deactivation appeals process.” “Now, drivers will always make at least 70% of the weekly rider fares after external fees. It’s all part of our new customer-obsessed focus on drivers,” Lyft said in a statement.
That was not enough to stop today’s protest or plans for more.
“Driver! Power! Driver! Power!” drivers chanted, holding signs that expressed their anger: “I’m a driver; I deserve a living wage,” “Stop exploitation of gig workers,” and “Fuck Uber! Deactivated after I was assaulted!” YouTuber Rideshare Professor also joined the rally from Los Angeles, live-streaming the action with a pair of crutches. It’s unclear why he had them.
Multiple drivers and organizers mentioned “Minneapolis” as an optimistic note when sharing their stories. In March, rideshare drivers won a minimum wage ordinance from the Minneapolis city council, which reportedly “refused to be bullied by the rideshare corporations.”
Both Uber and Lyft have threatened to withdraw services from the area if the minimum wage law is passed.
But, to drivers, it was still a victory. “I don’t think it’s working in San Francisco yet, but things are happening in other cities,” said one. “You see what’s happening in Minneapolis.”
These jobs will all be eliminated when Waymo and Cruise fully take over
Even if they get paid fairly according to minimum wage law, its still very low especially in California.
Robot cars are/will be much more expensive for livery servicess to operate than exploiting underpaid, desperate workers, which exploitation itself is apparently also unprofitable for said livery services. The eventual outcome might just be a return to conventional taxi service, which is probably the only profitable model for an equipment-based, low-margin service. Over at theNaked Capitalism blog, Hubert Horan did an extensive series (30+ posts) of deep dives into the economics of uber, and found it has no path to sustainable profitability, regardless of the compostiion of its fleet, regardless of the expolitation of its workers.
The reason prop 22 passed is not the millions in campaign dollars, it is Californians wanting to keep their cheap rides. I voted no, but across the state, this is simple proof how we don’t care. This means that pay for Uber drivers will remain what it is, unless they can spin that dynamic in their favor. Good luck with that, inflation, consumer debt and all.
Only logical conclusion: You don’t want to die on that hill, find a better paying job!
If you want the wages & benefits of a w-2 job then go get a w-2 job. Being an independent contractor has its pro n cons like everything else, but read the fine print when you sign up you’re not a employee.
Uber just keeps lowering our pay while ramping up corporate profits. You can claim look at Minneapolis but the governor still has to overrule their law and he says he wants Uber and Lyft to stay. Im sure Uber is using all the influence they can to get this done. The easy way to end Uber is all quit the platform and go drive for taxi company’s. Uber goes belly up with no drivers
It’s not a real job it’s for extra money