Rideshare Drivers United along with their supporters gathered outside Uber Greenlight Hub in midcity today.
At issue: low wages and lack of transparency for how the company pays their drivers.
Nicole Moore: You know, so often you have to decide whether you’re going to spend that little, you know, 50 bucks, that you just got to put gas in your car, so you can work some more, or whether you need to buy a sandwich, you know.
Nicole Moore is the president of Rideshare Drivers United, the 20,000-member Los Angeles group coordinating local gig drivers.
Nicole Moore: those are not the kinds of choices that that anybody should have to make.
Protestors walked up and down the side of the streets chanting into megaphones... as cars honked their horns in support.
Nicole Moore: We’re fighting for $1.75 per mile and 60 cents per minute. Many of us used to make that when we started on the app back in 2016 2017. You know, nobody’s making that anymore. I mean, we’re seeing less than 50 cents a mile.
[Prop 22 Chants - Prop 22 repeat Prop 22]
Protestors say Prop 22, California’s gig law that went into effect 2020, has actually hurt drivers. The law was supposed to guarantee some benefits like, minimum earnings and healthcare reimbursement. But Moore says those guarantees are anything but guaranteed.
Nicole Moore: Right now we’re making less than federal minimum wage, which is 7.75. After you take out our expenses and the extra taxes we have to pay. But in addition to that, we’re fighting for dignity on the job, we’re fighting for a voice on the job. We really want Sacramento lawmakers to hear us and to know what these companies are doing.
Esterphanie St Juste was one of the speakers at the protest. She’s been a driver for nearly 10 years. She says, after Prop 22 was enacted, things changed.
Esterphanie St Juste: The way it works, is basically we provide the car, we will provide the maintenance for the car, we would get the gasoline for the car, and the insurance for the car. And Lyft and Uber would provide the app, which is basically handles dispatch, you know, and they would take 20%, you know, a small percentage.
St Juste says that was fair.
Esterphanie St Juste: Afterwards, from talking to each other, that they were, they were pricing the customers at one price and giving us another price. So it was like, so we were just like we couldn’t believe it. So they were stealing from us.
And that’s how the group leading the protest was formed.
We reached out to both Uber and Lyft. In a statement sent to us, Uber said that basically the vast majority of drivers are satisfied and drivers in the U.S. were making about $33 an hour. And Lyft said they recently released a series of new offers and commitments aimed at increasing driver pay and transparency.
Even so Moore says real change won’t come until lawmakers step in.
Nicole Moore: Sometimes it costs us more to operate our vehicle than it does to take you on a ride for what we’re paid. So we call those charity rides. We’re not here for charity. We’re trying to actually have our family supported have a roof over our heads. So we’re fighting for basic dignity and fair pay.
The protest in Los Angeles was just one of many being held today in the nation.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Aerianne Collantes.