# The Uber lord giveth but drivers pay price....



## Hugh G (Sep 22, 2016)

*The Uber lord giveth but drivers pay price*

Uber investors might get uber rich from the company's public offering this May. But not everyone is sharing in the spoils of the so-called sharing economy.

*John Davidson *Columnist
Apr 22, 2019 - 2.00pm
https://www.afr.com/technology/tech...otional-price-for-its-success-20190417-p51f5w
In John Updike's 1960 novel about the American dream, _Rabbit Run_, the character Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom flees his middle-class life, leaving chaos and sorrow in his wake.

"When I ran from Janice I made an interesting discovery ... if you have the guts to be yourself," he says, "other people'll pay your price."

Rabbit had just left his pregnant wife, Janice, and their two-year-old son Nelson, and had shacked up with a prostitute. His guff about "being yourself" was really just a polite way of saying "being an arsehole".









Uber drivers are set to pick up a bonus if they have made lots of trips, but they will still have earned way below the going rate for most workers. AP

Sixty years later, the American dream may have transmogrified into owning a successful technology start-up, but Rabbit's "discovery" remains just as true now as it was then.

And judging from their behaviour, it might even be the motto for many an American tech company: if you have the courage to be yourself, everyone else will be forced to pick up your tab.

That's true of Facebook, the "morally bankrupt" social media giant that has lumbered the world with the very high-cost of its success, and it's apparently true of Uber, too, which in the run-up to its IPO in May has been trying to make amends for some of the egregious behaviour that made it the success it is.

On April 27, about 5000 Australian Uber driver are supposed to receive a one-off "driver appreciation reward" that, for drivers who have completed 20,000 trips or more with Uber, will amount to roughly $14,000, or about 70¢ per trip.

Drivers who have completed 10,000 trips will receive $1400, or 14¢ per trip, far less than would be required to bring drivers' income up to par.
That Uber has been paying its drivers less than the going rate has been well-documented.

Having to endure low pay and an unrelenting workload aren't the only ways in which drivers have been paying the price of Uber's success.
Studies in the US show that Uber drivers tend to make even less money than Amazon's notoriously poorly paid warehouse workers (Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, is arguably also the world's greatest exponent of Rabbit's discovery) , and a study here in Australia estimates that drivers earn about $14.62 an hour before tax, well below the statutory minimum wage of $18.93 an hour.

Of course, with so many drivers willing to work for a pittance, Uber has also changed the very definition of the going rate, too.

Taxi drivers in cities where Uber has a presence generally report their income declining by between 30 and 50 per cent when Uber enters their market, and the trail of bankrupt cab owners Uber leaves in its wake suggests that others, too, are paying a high-price for Uber's success.

Cabbies are often forced to drive for Uber to try to make up the shortfall, and in numerous interviews I've done with men and women who work for taxi companies and for Uber, the prevailing theme is that working for the American app company is much more of a grind than driving taxis ever was.

Uber rides tend to be shorter than taxi rides, so Uber drivers have to pick up far more customers than cabbies to make the same money. As a consequence, they have much less time to rest, to eat and to relieve themselves, the drivers say.

But having to endure low pay and an unrelenting workload aren't the only ways in which drivers have been paying the price of Uber's success.

The very nature of Uber's "driver appreciation reward" - an arbitrary, one-off payment meant to appease drivers who have been complaining about the high, 27.5 per cent commission Uber charges for introducing drivers to riders - suggests Uber has adopted a high-handed, capricious approach to dealing with its drivers.

And, indeed, many drivers I have spoken to, as well as the Ride Share Drivers' Association of Australia, cite that as one of the biggest problems with Uber: its ability to unilaterally switch off a driver's app leaves them in fear of losing their income in an instant, and leaves them feeling dehumanised when they're forced to endure poor customer behaviour without complaining.

Uber has a rating system that is meant to ensure customers, as well as drivers, behave with decorum, but the asymmetric nature of the system drivers get punished far more heavily than riders for poor ratings has actually proved to be an enabler of poor rider behaviour, not a deterrent.

Taxi drivers will tell that, when a passenger misbehaves in their cab, they have the option of stopping the cab and turfing the passenger onto the street.

But behind the wheel of an Uber, those same drivers say they feel disempowered. They're so terrified of getting a poor rating from the rider, and of Uber switching off their app as a consequence, they feel they have to suck it up and smile.

Uber may have promised its most loyal drivers a bonus that helps to close the gap between what they're earning and what might be regarded as fair pay, but it doesn't begin to address the emotional price that Uber's workers have had to pay for its success.

_*The Uber lord giveth, the Uber lord taketh away.*_


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