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 tips. 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 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 protects 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 blow back 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.”