Uber Drivers March For Better Pay, Protections

Drivers from across the state broke away from behind their steering wheels Wednesday to march across New Haven to demand better benefits, pay and protections from rideshare companies like Uber.

The drivers, who work mostly for Uber — but also for apps like DoorDash and Lyft — convened at New Haven’s Union Station to gather gig workers for the walk up to City Hall, where they met with legislators to share stories of exploitation and propose some possible paths forward.

“The drivers of Connecticut are suffering,” Carlos Gomez, co-founder of worker-led nonprofit Connecticut Drivers United (CDU), said in Spanish to a crowd of onlookers outside 165 Church St.

“We are not something for you to pick up on the streets!” declared Alex Johnson, another member of CDU. Johnson, an Uber driver, focused her comments on protections for women and individuals disproportionately vulnerable to violent maltreatment on the job. ​“We are workers.”

The pair are two of the lead organizers pushing for Uber and similar services to provide a minimum wage, workers’ compensation, health insurance, and protection from sexual harassment and discrimination. The drivers — who are technically ​“independent contractors” rather than ​“employees” subject to legal protections — said they often less than minimum wage while enduring exposure to dangerous conditions.

“We work 80 to 100 hours a week. We don’t have any kind of benefits, and the companies take away 70 percent of what you all pay,” Gomez asserted.

Gomez, 48, is a professional piano player originally from Cuba. He started driving for Uber in 2014 as a way to supplement his income; he could get customers to their destination for several hours in the morning, then work private concerts in the evening. Now, he also relies on Uber to help support his two children, ages 4 and 5.

He said he has grown outraged by how much of his earnings he believes rideshare apps seem to be sharing.

Uber states on its website that it takes 25 percent of driver’s fares. (Uber did not respond to a request for comment for this story.) But the equations which determine how much Uber, its drivers, and its customers are earning and paying are more complex than the company’s site suggests.

Drivers are paid based on how far and how long they drive (65 cents per mile and 20 cents per minute) in addition to a base fare and minimum fare supplement, alongside a 55 cent temporary fuel surcharge in response to gas inflation. 

But customers often pay fees on top of those charges. And according to the drivers present at Wednesday’s event, Uber does not inform their contractors the total amount that each customer is paying.

Drivers are also not paid for wait time that is often involved in food pick-up services; Johnson said she has waited for hours outside of restaurants when they are slow to prepare an order). Many apps do not inform drivers how much a customer has promised to tip. Drivers are in charge of paying for gas and maintenance for their vehicles, significant expenses that can almost entirely outweigh any money they’re taking in through their work, they said.

Johnson spoke about getting harassed one to two times per day by ​“wasted” or disrespectful customers.

Drivers said they can make less than $10 per hour on long rides, due to inherently problematic math by apps or customer refusal to tip.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Hamden Legislative Council Representative Abdul Osmanu, Mayor Justin Elicker, and New Haven Teachers’ Union President Leslie Blatteau spoke at the rally in support of the drivers and of the idea of unionization.

“Union members earn on average 20 percent more than those in a non-union workforce,” DeLauro stated. She spoke in support a bill before Congress, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act; the act would classify rideshare drivers as workers and protect workers’ ability to organize.

Past legislative efforts at the State Capitol have sought to help gig drivers unionize and pursue collective bargaining practices, such as Raised Senate Bill 1000: An Act Concerning Transportation Network Company Drivers. Those efforts have since been shelved following blowback from drivers themselves. (Read more about that here.)

While some of the drivers who spoke to the Independent expressed a desire to become full-time Uber employees, most said they would prefer to remain contractors with an emphasis on partnership.

They are asking for baseline compensation and care that they said Uber is too easily able to skirt around due to their employment classification.

For example, Johnson said she would like to see Uber perform background checks on customers and create a human resources office to field complaints. Currently, the only actions she can take when a customer violates her — she recalled instances of drunk men grabbing either her or her steering wheel, and of verbally assaulting her — are to leave them a bad review or report them to Uber customer service. Each time she does so, she is at risk of losing her tip if the customer retracts it as a form of retaliation. 

She said she tries only to report a customer only if she answers yes to the question: ​“Are they gonna rape the next driver?”

Johnson said she has gotten concussions and fallen multiple times on the job due to slippery roads, sidewalks and driveways — leaving her both injured and out of work. 

The CDU has crafted its own legislation that it hopes to see raised in the 2023 legislation session. Gomez said the CDU is looking in that bill to give drivers the right to 75 percent of the total customer fee.

“Why do you need a union if you don’t have any benefits? Collective bargaining but for what?” he asked. ​“We want a base working compensation.”

“We all use Uber, and it’s very convenient for all of us,” he said. ​“But the drivers are the ones who pay the consequences.”

Nora Grace-Flood’s reporting is supported in part by a grant from Report for America.