Rideshare drivers rallied at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan Wednesday, protesting getting locked out of the Uber and Lyft apps on their shifts.
They chanted, “No drivers, no Uber.”
What You Need To Know
- Drivers rallied from City Hall to Uber’s headquarters Wednesday
- The Taxi and Limousine Commission updated a rule that requires Uber and Lyft, combined, need to have passengers riding in their cars 53% of the time
- City regulations require drivers to be compensated for the time waiting to dispatch. Uber and Lyft have locked drivers out of the apps, which prevents them from making money and limits drivers when there is less demand
- Advocates say this is costing drivers hundreds of dollars each week
In order to operate, the Taxi and Limousine Commission said Uber and Lyft, combined, need to have passengers riding in their cars 53% of the time.
In March 2023, the TLC adjusted the pay formula for the apps for the “empty time component.”
That is, the time drivers spend on duty waiting to dispatch with no passenger in their car.
City regulations require drivers to be compensated for the time they’re waiting for a dispatch. Uber and Lyft locked drivers out of the app during their shifts, which prevents them from making money and limits drivers when there is less demand.
“Uber and Lyft are costing drivers hundreds of dollars every single week and on top of that they are covering up how much empty time you have today so they do not need to pay you more,” Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers, said.
MD Udin has been a rideshare driver for seven years.
“They can’t do this. Everyone has a right, everybody has rights. Why do they go to my job?” Udin said. “This is not fair.”
Advocates criticized the Uber, Lyft and the TLC for mismanagement of the platforms and over hiring drivers.
“We now have a crisis of oversaturation and instead of paying the drivers for that empty time, the companies are instead punishing the driver,” Desai said.
“The driver is the worker, and the driver is the person who makes the profits,” Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani said.
Uber provided this statement that reads, “We stopped onboarding drivers in January. With a rule that lumps the industry together rather than holding each company accountable, there’s only so much we can do.”
Lyft shared a statement that reads, “Lyft wants drivers to be successful but the current NYC pay formula is broken because [of] the way it measures utilization works against drivers.”
“We hear NYTWA and the city’s for-hire drivers loud and clear and if the rideshares don’t address this soon, we will,” the TLC said.
Drivers say they will rally again Thursday — making their way to Uber’s headquarters in the city. They added that if their demands are not met, they plan on escalating their efforts to a full-blown strike.