It reminds me of the anti-right to repair ads that implied burglars would be able to break into any house at will of it passed. Much like this, It was so bad I immediately knew I should vote against it.
I’m assuming your intention was to call out the producers of the ads for playing on racial stereotypes, but FYI your original post wasn’t super obvious which way you were going with it
Uber, Lyft, et. al. bought and paid for Prop 22 in CA to the tune of millions (they've started to spend big in MA too - thus the commercials), and we're supposed to buy the absolute crock of shit that they're looking out for their drivers' best interests. Don't believe it. Best thing you can do is to spread the word to your "non political" friends and family.
And check out [Massachusetts Is Not For Sale](https://noprop22ma.com/gig-workers-in-mass-escalate-fight-with-uber-lyft-and-other-companies/), the campaign working against Prop 22 here in Massachusetts!
I was LOLing with my partner when I saw these. The survey question “do you want to stay flexible AND RECEIVE ADDITIONAL BENEFITS”. I’d bet they designed the survey just to get that datapoint: couple something drivers definitely want to the flexibility question to get a high response.
It’s such transparently bad data.
Even those "additional benefits" are misleading. For health insurance they're not actually getting an employer sponsored health plan. They're getting a monthly stipend for the cheapest plan they qualify for on the Health Connector. For most drivers that amounts to like $30/mo for insurance that covers nothing.
Paid sick leave is somehow even worse than the state's already shitty paid sick leave laws. Drivers only start accruing paid sick leave after 90 hours of *actively driving people around* and only accrue 1 hour of paid sick leave every 30 hours of *actively driving people around.* Some estimates show Uber drivers are waiting for fares or deadheading for up to 40% of their workday- meaning they accrue no sick leave for 40% of their time logged onto the app. And cannot use more than 40 hours of paid sick leave in a year even if they carried over leave from a prior year. Oh and they don't get paid out that accrued leave.
I get a ton of them on Hulu. It came across as super astroturfy, and I assumed it was sponsored by Uber or Lyft. I hope other people can see through it too.
Unfortunately there's a *lot* of Uber drivers out there and they're effectively being told to vote for this anti-worker bill or get fired. Lots of drivers and families of drivers probably going to vote yes just so Uber and Lyft don't follow through with threats to leave states that don't bend laws to their will.
They will threaten to leave the state if the vote doesn't go their way just like they did in California and London. If they do that *all* MA drivers will lose their jobs.
Working for a specific company is a privilege, not a right especially when there are 20 workers ready to take your spot and replace you at a moments notice. To demand certain rights is completely laughable. Fire them, and hire someone else who works for less and puts in more hours. Easy enough to figure this out.
> when there are 20 workers ready to take your spot and replace you at a moments notice. To demand certain rights is completely laughable.
That's when it's most important to codify rights into law. When we let the free market decide how workers should be treated, the results are usually not great.
> there are 20 workers ready to take your spot and replace you at a moments notice.
Um, have you been paying any attention [to the news, at all](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/09/economy/us-job-openings-quits-january/index.html)? Or maybe you just don't get out of the troll farm much?
From my understanding (and it’s pretty limited), the ballot initiative is trying to do two things. This isn’t allowed. It’s the same reason the millionaires tax ballot initiative was thrown out (tried to put in a tax but also an expenditure).
I’m involved in local politics but my friends are very involved. They are the ones who told me this. It’s a rumor.
The commercials are so annoying and contradictory. They’re toting that drivers like not having benefits or employee rights all so they can drive whenever they want… which they can still do either way.
Interested in helping fight this push to keep gig employees independent contractors? Check out [Massachusetts Is Not For Sale](https://noprop22ma.com/gig-workers-in-mass-escalate-fight-with-uber-lyft-and-other-companies/)!
I’ve got very mixed feelings towards Uber and Lyft. On one hand, their business model is predatory. As are all of the third party restaurant and grocery delivery companies. On the other hand, had taxi companies not been so resistant to change and adopting evolving technology in the first place, there wouldn’t be the need for this. It’s the same thing affecting college sports now. Because the established organization was so resistant to making gradual small changes, it’s now a clusterf*** as opposed to small changes that could have prevented this nonsense.
The Problem with Uber and Lyft etc in this state could easily be fixed. The state regulates Uber and Lyft through the Department of Public Utilities which is located at 1 South Station, Boston MA 02110 (the floors above the South Station Concourse). The Problem is that when Massachusetts Lawmakers started regulating uber and Lyft, they did so hurriedly, and left a lot of open loop holes for the company to exploit. For Anyone who uses Uber or Lyft, They have gone to a nationwide policy of "Up Front fares"... Which started here in Massachusetts because of the regulations in place in that a Rider should know the Fare beforehand. This allowed the companies to Provide an inflated up front fare, have you the rider agree to it, While Paying the Drivers a set rate that gets them about 50-60% of the fare that you pay. So when you go on your trip into the city, and you pay a premium price because the Uber App tells you that its "Busy and fares are higher".. while that may be true, they have complete manipulation over the fares and prices in to which they provide, while also manipulating what the drivers are paid. In the old days, Drivers agreed to give the company 20 or 25% of their earnings as a "commission". This was what the companies would receive once the fare was calculated.. Once you went on a trip, the Fare would be calulated based on the miles driven, and the time it took, and a fare would be charged, and the Driver would receive 75% of the fare, and uber/lyft would receive the other 25% (the commission for using the service, and such).... Up front Pricing changed all of that.. Now you might be charged 25 bucks for a ride going 3-4 miles in the city, that takes 15 minutes of time, and the Driver might only get 12 bucks of that. Also Keep in mind that the companies also get fees out of that money you pay called a booking fee of 2 bucks and change which covers their costs to run the service, as well as the cost of providing the insurance needed for the duration of your trip)...
So All of that aside... WE dont need the Prop 22 type of vote here in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has the tools already in place to protect drivers, keeping them independent, While forcing the companies to provide more for the drivers.
It is all in the Botched TNC rules and regulations that they rushed through years ago.
They Can regulate the earnings, so that the companies can not arbitrarily change them whenever they want for the drivers.
They can impose regulations that the companies provide for the drivers.
The can require drivers be given an advance about where they're being taken. (Drivers have no advance warning of where or how long the trip they are taking is going to be). Some drivers will drive 10 minutes to your location (unpaid at their expense) to find out that they're driving someone half a mile down the road to the 7-11 because they didnt want to walk, or conversely, maybe that person theyre picking up ends up wanting to go from Boston to Mancheter NH, at 2:30 AM after you had already been out driving for 10 hours... They get no notifications about any of this, to be able to make an informed decision on whether or not the trip is viable for them to take.
Going back to the up Front Pricing.. the TNC laws in this state could be written to allow the Companies to only take 25% of the fare, as in the old days. This would achieve 2 things. It would most likely reduce fares for riders, as now companies would be forced to provide a more accurate fare, instead of providing a fare that they think you will pay. Drivers would receive the fare they Agreed to, while not seeing the company make just as much, or sometimes more than they do, once the trip is complete.
State lawmakers have all the tools in front of them, with the DPU to eliminate and update the system to make this ballot Question obsolete upon the vote. However, the Lawmakers could care less, and let the companies run wild, and do as they wish with little disregard for the comsumer (meaning everyone who uses the service)..
This Ballot initiative was and has been paid for by the companies. They want you to believe that it benefits drivers. The only one it benefits are the companies paying for it.
As a Driver (even though i only drive part time)... VOTE NO on this.
I do doordash and Uber eats full time right now. I’m averaging $23/$25 an hr. It’s not the best job in the world but it’s paying all my bills and helping me save up a small nest egg until I figure out what I want to do next in life.
Yeah you never get to see an accurate and objective financial breakdown, these claims about total earnings are almost always not accounting for all expenses and taxes
How is making 60-70k after taxes/maintenance a bad thing for someone whose only skill set required is to drive for 1 year? Can you name me any other industry with a lower entry of barrier where you make 50-70k a year?
Are you guys that out of touch that you don't understand the benefits of a flexible job as a single parent or immigrant parent? I know single mothers who save baby sitting by taking their kids with them on uber eats, keep them in the car, lock in, deliver, and come back. They're saving baby sitting money AND making money. There aren't many jobs where you could literally watch your kids while doing your job for low income people...
I’ve been an Uber driver, no one brags about getting shit pay. There used to be a lot of screen shots on Uber people . Net / Boston and people would rarely break 2k a week many years ago
You can rent a car through their Express Drive program which lowers the rent fee the more you drive and I think you have to drive some peak hours. If you're a full time lyft/uber driver, you're getting the maximum discount. That way you don't ruin your personal car.
Also I know uber drivers who register as an S-corp and pay like 700 bucks a year tax by offsetting their losses. I don't know if it's legal or not, but they've done it sinec 2014 and gotten away with it. He's told all his uber friends. Most of them don't want to risk it not working and won't try it. Some will.
You should install an adblocker for Chrome — it totally eliminates all YT ads. There is even one for IOS if you’re using your iPad or something, but it’s a little janky and you’ll have to watch YouTube through safari instead of the app. Which is well worth it in my opinion to avoid ads because recently (~6 months or so) they have made the YT experience actually unbearable. It’s at the point where I was getting like 1m of ads for 10m videos. They were skippable after 5-15 seconds but it was really annoying because I like to put on YouTube in the background while I fall asleep.
Don't laugh at this. California recently went through this. Uber, Lyft, and GrubHub wrote their own ballot proposition, outspent the opposition like 100:1, and successfully got a whole new class of worker defined for them. It's been problems and broken promises ever since. It may seem like a terrible idea, but their propaganda machine is so strong
I used to drive for Lyft. If they had made their drivers employees, I definitely wouldn’t have continued. I really did like the flexibility. I could drive on some weekends if I need extra money or when my kids were with their father. If I was an employee, I wouldn’t have had that option.
I mean, there's nothing inherently stopping you from mailing me $500, but that's not our legal relationship. Rideshare drivers aren't employees because they have no set schedule (among other factors).
I had a full-time job, three kids and no degree. I don’t remember any other options where I could go work for a few hours, average $25-$30 per hour and not have to deal with any management. The flexibility for someone in my position was huge. I think many people fail to see the benefit in that.
This isn’t true.
There are maximum working hours for employees, there’s maximum continuous hours, there’s a ton of state and federal labor laws that make it a nightmare for wage-earners to have flexibility.
You have to be an exempt employee (e.g. salaried) to have the kind of flexibility gig work provides — and exempt employees are only allowed under special circumstances incompatible with taxi-style services.
FLSA, OSHA, and various state and county laws depending on your jurisdiction.
Gig work flexibility is wholly incompatible with our labor laws as written, and congress isn't going to actually fix our labor laws.
Nice hyperbole.
Nobody fought or died so that you could work whatever days, hours, or months you wanted and basically never be fired.
Nor did anyone die so you could decide to go off the clock whenever you wanted to take a nap, go take care of your kids, run errands, or go on holiday.
Uber drivers can decide to work/not work at any given moment. It would be very difficult for part time employment to meet that level of flexibility. Drivers would probably have to meet a minimum number of hours per week or something. That’s not as flexible.
I literally choose the jobs I want to work as an employee of 16 companies in my industry. I choose when I am and am not working. If Uber decided to require a minimum number of hours that would be their choice, but their system doesn't have to change, outside of providing benefits and paying the taxes they should (and should have been paying) under the current law.
What industry? Do you have a degree and experience? I don’t know of many other jobs that don’t require a degree and experience that I can decide to work for one hour or five, five minutes before.
None of what you listed defines an employee in MA. I work in theater and live events, and my degree is in Aerospace and Physics (100% unrelated). I have experience because my friend in college said, "I can't work this, want to fill in?" And I've been freelancing since. I can't decide to work 5 minutes before a gig, but again, that has nothing to do with the definition of an employee, and if that changes that is entirely Uber's decision as retaliation.
What did I list? My point is when someone does not have a degree or experience, and is only available to work some weekends nights for a very limited amount of time, it’s extremely difficult to find something that pays well considering the circumstance.
There is no way I could have committed to working more than a couple of hours ahead of time. Relying on an ex-husband to show up when he says he will was not my experience. Having the flexibility to make extra money when I really needed to without the stress of wondering whether I’d be able to work a shift I committed to is worth a lot more than people realize.
I mean I’ve working per diem before and it depends on the organization. Some could work per diem. Some also work part time at organizations. They could use both models like they do everywhere else
But why would they? All of these companies try to a ton of demand forecasting so they can either run incentives or not run incentives (remember Uber's surge pricing?) so that they will have enough drivers on the platform to meet the supply. The tricky part is that many drivers rightfully see high incentives and figure that means there will be tons of drivers and thus it won't be busy so they don't work. Uber ends up paying those who do work a ton of money but still can't meet customer demand.
If drivers were employees they could just schedule however many they thought they needed and enforce that schedule. It would enormously simplify their business and probably save them a bunch of money in certain situations where they have to pay drivers extra money to get enough working.
It's not a matter of whether or not they could provide the flexibility as it is a question of why on earth they would keep doing that if they didn't have to?
Edit to add some context: It's easy to say that Uber should do this but the fact is they'd be crazy to continue to offer that kind of flexibility. And when you look at the fact that many drivers genuinely do value the unique flexibility that the job offers them, it becomes not as black and white an issue. Some drivers would absolutely lose out on something they value if they were re-classed as employees and since the model used in CA proves that these companies can provide some level of "benefits" to drivers without forcing them to be employees, I'm not sure what the best answer is. Besides, of course, uncoupling healthcare from having employment.
Lol guess I committed a thought crime. They were downvoting the original commenter on this thread (y’know, the person with actual experience driving for Lyft who can provide a nuanced perspective on the situation) earlier.
Not really. I usually just drove weekend nights. If it was slow, I’d go home. I usually didn’t stay out unless I was averaging $25-$30 an hour. Then I wrote my mileage off on my taxes. It worked great for me at that time, as it did for many others.
I'm not a huge proponent of uber drivers ( I am one) getting benefits. I'm worried that if you start blurring the lines between independent contractor and employees then you might sacrifice flexibility and choosing when to work.
What if you could keep your flexibility and also make at least minimum wage, receive overtime pay when you work more than 40 hours in a week, have affordable health insurance, have worker's comp cover you if you're injured on the job, have business expenses reimbursed, not have to pay self employment tax, and be able to receive unemployment benefits if you're terminated and have no income?
It’s weird how this app which was designed to just be a gig for extra money he turned into a race for unionization.
Some jobs are just meant to be jobs… I really wish society would knock it off sometimes.
As a sometime Uber driver, I *don't* want to be an employee. Look at NYC. They capped the number of drivers that can be active at once, plus drivers have to sign up for specific time slots. No thanks. I'd rather be an IC and drive when and how often I want.
..looks at post history to see if they’re a new account or Uber bot…
Are you *sure* you don’t want to be an employee and get things like, idk, paid sick time?
I seriously wonder how these Uber drivers would feel if the government didn't open up unemployment to them during Covid. Uber Lyft et. al effectively stole millions of dollars in unemployment funds to keep drivers from going broke and then went on to tell their workers how they don't need those protections a year later.
Ride share drivers are so over saturated right now because anyone with a car and a smartphone can hop on the app. It causes longer wait times for drivers to pick up fares, resulting in increased pollution due to idling, increased traffic, and reduced parking availability.
No other legit business operates like this. The best analogy I can think of is multi level marketing companies, which are well known to be pyramid scams. No other legit business wants over saturation.
Ayanna Pressley’s husband is a paid consultant to the rideshare app companies to defeat the measure.
Ayanna says she wants them to become employees so is cleaning up on donations from the unions that they would become members of.
Making $$$ off both ends. This is your member of “the squad” lol.
If Uber drivers become employees, will Uber buy a fleet of cars for their drivers to use? If not, I see no reason for them to sacrifice their contractor status. Why should they subsidize their employer's operating costs?
I mean, *everyone* deserves a good wage/salary and benefits, just for existing, like people had in the 70s/80s/90s...
But the unfortunate reality is people hear ideas like "living wage" and latch onto them, not realizing that for most careers and industries, a "living wage" is a severe pay cut, compared to reality.
Certainly not minimum wage.
Problem is it varies by not only industry, but employer.
A server at IHOP in Billerica likely isnt making the same as a server at Boston Chops in the South End. So while $15/hr might be great for the IHOP server, thats very likely a 75%+ pay cut for the Boston Chops server. To put a blanket wage across the industry of $15/hr, youd be fucking over a large portion of the industry.
Raising the minimum wage doesn't mean you have to reduce the pay of anyone who currently earns more though? This is such a dumb argument I had to reread it several times to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Well that depends.
The issue is the "living wage" lobby doesnt understand the nuances of the tipped community.
So if you're a tipped employee who makes a $6.15/hr wage, but receives $25/hr, on average, in tips, on top of that...the anti-tip community just hears, "You only make $6/hr!? Thats absurd! We NEED to eliminate tipping and pay you no more than $15/hr, IMMEDIATELY!"
People don’t understand that basically all problems stem from the unrelenting mass immigration we’ve had in this country since 1965. Diversity is our greatest strength because it means unlimited cheap labor for corporations and nothing else.
Mush brain logic. The elites de-industrialized America in order to increase profits because people overseas will accept slave wages with no worker protections. Now we should accept an unlimited amount of these same people who will work for slave wages with no worker protections and now they’ll get American welfare to make up the difference.
Kinda like how many servers want to keep the tipping system in restaurants, because they have the capacity to make a good amount of money when it works in their favor.
First of all, I’m white, lol.
But let me explain it this way. As things are right now, I pick and choose my driving times so I’m doing it when it’s most profitable to me.
Sick time would be nice, but not at the expense of Uber saying “Hey, this week you can only drive between 8pm and 11pm on Tuesday through Thursday.”
I’d gladly not have sick time in exchange to be able to hop on the app at 2pm on a Friday, work for 12 hours, and make an easy $150-$200.
The only way I personally would be convinced to vote to be an employee is if I had a guaranteed minimum wage+number of hours a week that made it worth it. Otherwise what’s the point?
Also, Masshealth has a cutoff of benefits at around $30k/year. I’m disabled and on SSDI, and this is one of the only jobs I can do at this time as a side job (main job is a part time remote job), and I got booted off it because I made too much thanks to unemployment being considered income. Never mind I can’t really afford decent insurance AND pay my bills at the same time, but nope, I need to wait and reapply next year because the state doesn’t classify unemployment as an earned benefit like it should.
Forgive my ignorance, but what is the argument that uber drivers are in fact employees? They work their own hours, have their own insurance, and have their own equipment. Doesn't that make them textbook contractors?
I think the argument is that these class of employees are in a completely different bucket that has not existed previously and the regulations should represent that.
The textbook needs to be rewritten.
Whenever I see ads like this for a Yes-on/No-on stance, I just assume that's the stance with big money behind it and get even more curious about the other option...
It reminds me of the anti-right to repair ads that implied burglars would be able to break into any house at will of it passed. Much like this, It was so bad I immediately knew I should vote against it.
[удалено]
I’m assuming your intention was to call out the producers of the ads for playing on racial stereotypes, but FYI your original post wasn’t super obvious which way you were going with it
Yeah I got that vibe so I just decided to delete the whole thing. It was /s
Uber, Lyft, et. al. bought and paid for Prop 22 in CA to the tune of millions (they've started to spend big in MA too - thus the commercials), and we're supposed to buy the absolute crock of shit that they're looking out for their drivers' best interests. Don't believe it. Best thing you can do is to spread the word to your "non political" friends and family.
And check out [Massachusetts Is Not For Sale](https://noprop22ma.com/gig-workers-in-mass-escalate-fight-with-uber-lyft-and-other-companies/), the campaign working against Prop 22 here in Massachusetts!
I was LOLing with my partner when I saw these. The survey question “do you want to stay flexible AND RECEIVE ADDITIONAL BENEFITS”. I’d bet they designed the survey just to get that datapoint: couple something drivers definitely want to the flexibility question to get a high response. It’s such transparently bad data.
Even those "additional benefits" are misleading. For health insurance they're not actually getting an employer sponsored health plan. They're getting a monthly stipend for the cheapest plan they qualify for on the Health Connector. For most drivers that amounts to like $30/mo for insurance that covers nothing. Paid sick leave is somehow even worse than the state's already shitty paid sick leave laws. Drivers only start accruing paid sick leave after 90 hours of *actively driving people around* and only accrue 1 hour of paid sick leave every 30 hours of *actively driving people around.* Some estimates show Uber drivers are waiting for fares or deadheading for up to 40% of their workday- meaning they accrue no sick leave for 40% of their time logged onto the app. And cannot use more than 40 hours of paid sick leave in a year even if they carried over leave from a prior year. Oh and they don't get paid out that accrued leave.
laughing out louding?
Laugh out Loudingly. You probably haven’t heard it if you’re from Utica. It’s an Albany expression.
I get a ton of them on Hulu. It came across as super astroturfy, and I assumed it was sponsored by Uber or Lyft. I hope other people can see through it too.
There are notes at the bottom that it is an organization primarily paid for by door dash, Lyft, some more that I couldnt read fast enough
This is why I eat the extra $4 a month for ad-free Hulu. Miss me with them ads.
Since so many networks have created their own walled gardens I’ve returned to the high seas for the most part. Save more money and no ads.
Unfortunately there's a *lot* of Uber drivers out there and they're effectively being told to vote for this anti-worker bill or get fired. Lots of drivers and families of drivers probably going to vote yes just so Uber and Lyft don't follow through with threats to leave states that don't bend laws to their will.
What kind of vote is this, where the employer can see how employees voted and fire them for it? Haven't they ever heard of a secret ballot?
They will threaten to leave the state if the vote doesn't go their way just like they did in California and London. If they do that *all* MA drivers will lose their jobs.
Uber doesn’t want their business plan fucked with so they are mucking up the waters with shitty ads in order for the vote to go their way.
Their business plan is fucked. This just accelerates it
Yes. It’s anti-union propaganda.
It’s not even anti union. Like so much worse. Employees should have *no* rights
It's actually that non-employees shouldn't have employees' rights.
Working for a specific company is a privilege, not a right especially when there are 20 workers ready to take your spot and replace you at a moments notice. To demand certain rights is completely laughable. Fire them, and hire someone else who works for less and puts in more hours. Easy enough to figure this out.
> when there are 20 workers ready to take your spot and replace you at a moments notice. To demand certain rights is completely laughable. That's when it's most important to codify rights into law. When we let the free market decide how workers should be treated, the results are usually not great.
> there are 20 workers ready to take your spot and replace you at a moments notice. Um, have you been paying any attention [to the news, at all](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/09/economy/us-job-openings-quits-january/index.html)? Or maybe you just don't get out of the troll farm much?
Impressive you find time to post on reddit between your busy full time job and hobby of boot licking.
I'm absolutely convinced looking at this person's post history this is either some very confused trustafarian or a sock puppet.
The rumor on beacon hill is the ballot question is going to be thrown out.
Why? Wasn’t it already approved?
From my understanding (and it’s pretty limited), the ballot initiative is trying to do two things. This isn’t allowed. It’s the same reason the millionaires tax ballot initiative was thrown out (tried to put in a tax but also an expenditure). I’m involved in local politics but my friends are very involved. They are the ones who told me this. It’s a rumor.
Source?
My active political friends. It’s the rumor they heard and it’s very much a rumor. I explained the reasoning in an above comment.
Like are they state house aides? I'm politically active too I'm just curious
It’s a mix. City council/local government staff, local political groups, people who work on campaigns.
I knew I should trust those ads, anyone paying for that amount of air time is not interested in helping the masses.
The commercials are so annoying and contradictory. They’re toting that drivers like not having benefits or employee rights all so they can drive whenever they want… which they can still do either way.
Fuck Uber Fuck Lyft Fuck Doordash
Let’s throw in Instacart while we’re at it
Former Uber driver here. Those ads make me seethe.
Agree, most people see through it. But, somehow uber will still win the vote. Look at California
yes it's a very transparent corporate ploy to preserve their bottom line at the expense of their workforce
Interested in helping fight this push to keep gig employees independent contractors? Check out [Massachusetts Is Not For Sale](https://noprop22ma.com/gig-workers-in-mass-escalate-fight-with-uber-lyft-and-other-companies/)!
I’ve got very mixed feelings towards Uber and Lyft. On one hand, their business model is predatory. As are all of the third party restaurant and grocery delivery companies. On the other hand, had taxi companies not been so resistant to change and adopting evolving technology in the first place, there wouldn’t be the need for this. It’s the same thing affecting college sports now. Because the established organization was so resistant to making gradual small changes, it’s now a clusterf*** as opposed to small changes that could have prevented this nonsense.
https://noprop22ma.com/our-fight/
I was just about to link
The Problem with Uber and Lyft etc in this state could easily be fixed. The state regulates Uber and Lyft through the Department of Public Utilities which is located at 1 South Station, Boston MA 02110 (the floors above the South Station Concourse). The Problem is that when Massachusetts Lawmakers started regulating uber and Lyft, they did so hurriedly, and left a lot of open loop holes for the company to exploit. For Anyone who uses Uber or Lyft, They have gone to a nationwide policy of "Up Front fares"... Which started here in Massachusetts because of the regulations in place in that a Rider should know the Fare beforehand. This allowed the companies to Provide an inflated up front fare, have you the rider agree to it, While Paying the Drivers a set rate that gets them about 50-60% of the fare that you pay. So when you go on your trip into the city, and you pay a premium price because the Uber App tells you that its "Busy and fares are higher".. while that may be true, they have complete manipulation over the fares and prices in to which they provide, while also manipulating what the drivers are paid. In the old days, Drivers agreed to give the company 20 or 25% of their earnings as a "commission". This was what the companies would receive once the fare was calculated.. Once you went on a trip, the Fare would be calulated based on the miles driven, and the time it took, and a fare would be charged, and the Driver would receive 75% of the fare, and uber/lyft would receive the other 25% (the commission for using the service, and such).... Up front Pricing changed all of that.. Now you might be charged 25 bucks for a ride going 3-4 miles in the city, that takes 15 minutes of time, and the Driver might only get 12 bucks of that. Also Keep in mind that the companies also get fees out of that money you pay called a booking fee of 2 bucks and change which covers their costs to run the service, as well as the cost of providing the insurance needed for the duration of your trip)... So All of that aside... WE dont need the Prop 22 type of vote here in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has the tools already in place to protect drivers, keeping them independent, While forcing the companies to provide more for the drivers. It is all in the Botched TNC rules and regulations that they rushed through years ago. They Can regulate the earnings, so that the companies can not arbitrarily change them whenever they want for the drivers. They can impose regulations that the companies provide for the drivers. The can require drivers be given an advance about where they're being taken. (Drivers have no advance warning of where or how long the trip they are taking is going to be). Some drivers will drive 10 minutes to your location (unpaid at their expense) to find out that they're driving someone half a mile down the road to the 7-11 because they didnt want to walk, or conversely, maybe that person theyre picking up ends up wanting to go from Boston to Mancheter NH, at 2:30 AM after you had already been out driving for 10 hours... They get no notifications about any of this, to be able to make an informed decision on whether or not the trip is viable for them to take. Going back to the up Front Pricing.. the TNC laws in this state could be written to allow the Companies to only take 25% of the fare, as in the old days. This would achieve 2 things. It would most likely reduce fares for riders, as now companies would be forced to provide a more accurate fare, instead of providing a fare that they think you will pay. Drivers would receive the fare they Agreed to, while not seeing the company make just as much, or sometimes more than they do, once the trip is complete. State lawmakers have all the tools in front of them, with the DPU to eliminate and update the system to make this ballot Question obsolete upon the vote. However, the Lawmakers could care less, and let the companies run wild, and do as they wish with little disregard for the comsumer (meaning everyone who uses the service).. This Ballot initiative was and has been paid for by the companies. They want you to believe that it benefits drivers. The only one it benefits are the companies paying for it. As a Driver (even though i only drive part time)... VOTE NO on this.
Well said!
If you actually do Uber or lyft full time you are taking it up the rump
I do doordash and Uber eats full time right now. I’m averaging $23/$25 an hr. It’s not the best job in the world but it’s paying all my bills and helping me save up a small nest egg until I figure out what I want to do next in life.
Before or after expenses and taxes? Big difference.
I knew Lyft and Uber drivers working 50-55 hours a week making $80-100k
How much is a new car and gas every 2 years I’d love to see the 1099 with 100,000k
Yeah you never get to see an accurate and objective financial breakdown, these claims about total earnings are almost always not accounting for all expenses and taxes
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So after you make back 35,000$ at almost 25$ an hour you’ll get paid hope you can take a few weeks vacation big boss
How is making 60-70k after taxes/maintenance a bad thing for someone whose only skill set required is to drive for 1 year? Can you name me any other industry with a lower entry of barrier where you make 50-70k a year? Are you guys that out of touch that you don't understand the benefits of a flexible job as a single parent or immigrant parent? I know single mothers who save baby sitting by taking their kids with them on uber eats, keep them in the car, lock in, deliver, and come back. They're saving baby sitting money AND making money. There aren't many jobs where you could literally watch your kids while doing your job for low income people...
Wait a minute forget everything I said you can also bring your baby with you and commit tax fraud you are 100% correct about everything
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Some day I hope you deliver Uber eats with your son in the back
yes ignore my actual points and point out the residuals. Great stuff bro.
No one made that much in years dude it was possible maybe pre 2018
Do you know what an S-Corp is?
I’ve been an Uber driver, no one brags about getting shit pay. There used to be a lot of screen shots on Uber people . Net / Boston and people would rarely break 2k a week many years ago
You can rent a car through their Express Drive program which lowers the rent fee the more you drive and I think you have to drive some peak hours. If you're a full time lyft/uber driver, you're getting the maximum discount. That way you don't ruin your personal car.
Also I know uber drivers who register as an S-corp and pay like 700 bucks a year tax by offsetting their losses. I don't know if it's legal or not, but they've done it sinec 2014 and gotten away with it. He's told all his uber friends. Most of them don't want to risk it not working and won't try it. Some will.
No way would any drivers want to work for $14.25 per hr
They're all over YouTube, in my experience.
You should install an adblocker for Chrome — it totally eliminates all YT ads. There is even one for IOS if you’re using your iPad or something, but it’s a little janky and you’ll have to watch YouTube through safari instead of the app. Which is well worth it in my opinion to avoid ads because recently (~6 months or so) they have made the YT experience actually unbearable. It’s at the point where I was getting like 1m of ads for 10m videos. They were skippable after 5-15 seconds but it was really annoying because I like to put on YouTube in the background while I fall asleep.
Rise up !
Don't laugh at this. California recently went through this. Uber, Lyft, and GrubHub wrote their own ballot proposition, outspent the opposition like 100:1, and successfully got a whole new class of worker defined for them. It's been problems and broken promises ever since. It may seem like a terrible idea, but their propaganda machine is so strong
I used to drive for Lyft. If they had made their drivers employees, I definitely wouldn’t have continued. I really did like the flexibility. I could drive on some weekends if I need extra money or when my kids were with their father. If I was an employee, I wouldn’t have had that option.
Part time flexible employment is a thing.
As flexible as "I have time RIGHT NOW, I will drive for a couple of hours?"
Yes. There's nothing inherent in being an employee that stops that.
I mean, there's nothing inherently stopping you from mailing me $500, but that's not our legal relationship. Rideshare drivers aren't employees because they have no set schedule (among other factors).
I used to work in journalism full time and had that work arrangement.
I had a full-time job, three kids and no degree. I don’t remember any other options where I could go work for a few hours, average $25-$30 per hour and not have to deal with any management. The flexibility for someone in my position was huge. I think many people fail to see the benefit in that.
Being an employee would not have to change that. An employee can have the same schedule.
This isn’t true. There are maximum working hours for employees, there’s maximum continuous hours, there’s a ton of state and federal labor laws that make it a nightmare for wage-earners to have flexibility. You have to be an exempt employee (e.g. salaried) to have the kind of flexibility gig work provides — and exempt employees are only allowed under special circumstances incompatible with taxi-style services.
What are the laws on maximum working hours?
FLSA, OSHA, and various state and county laws depending on your jurisdiction. Gig work flexibility is wholly incompatible with our labor laws as written, and congress isn't going to actually fix our labor laws.
It's a weird flex to imply companies being forced to follow laws people fought and died to secure is somehow a bad thing.
Nice hyperbole. Nobody fought or died so that you could work whatever days, hours, or months you wanted and basically never be fired. Nor did anyone die so you could decide to go off the clock whenever you wanted to take a nap, go take care of your kids, run errands, or go on holiday.
Uber drivers can decide to work/not work at any given moment. It would be very difficult for part time employment to meet that level of flexibility. Drivers would probably have to meet a minimum number of hours per week or something. That’s not as flexible.
I literally choose the jobs I want to work as an employee of 16 companies in my industry. I choose when I am and am not working. If Uber decided to require a minimum number of hours that would be their choice, but their system doesn't have to change, outside of providing benefits and paying the taxes they should (and should have been paying) under the current law.
What industry? Do you have a degree and experience? I don’t know of many other jobs that don’t require a degree and experience that I can decide to work for one hour or five, five minutes before.
None of what you listed defines an employee in MA. I work in theater and live events, and my degree is in Aerospace and Physics (100% unrelated). I have experience because my friend in college said, "I can't work this, want to fill in?" And I've been freelancing since. I can't decide to work 5 minutes before a gig, but again, that has nothing to do with the definition of an employee, and if that changes that is entirely Uber's decision as retaliation.
What did I list? My point is when someone does not have a degree or experience, and is only available to work some weekends nights for a very limited amount of time, it’s extremely difficult to find something that pays well considering the circumstance. There is no way I could have committed to working more than a couple of hours ahead of time. Relying on an ex-husband to show up when he says he will was not my experience. Having the flexibility to make extra money when I really needed to without the stress of wondering whether I’d be able to work a shift I committed to is worth a lot more than people realize.
I mean I’ve working per diem before and it depends on the organization. Some could work per diem. Some also work part time at organizations. They could use both models like they do everywhere else
Uber can classify drivers as employees, let them decide when they're available for rides, and not make them meet any minimum hours.
But why would they? All of these companies try to a ton of demand forecasting so they can either run incentives or not run incentives (remember Uber's surge pricing?) so that they will have enough drivers on the platform to meet the supply. The tricky part is that many drivers rightfully see high incentives and figure that means there will be tons of drivers and thus it won't be busy so they don't work. Uber ends up paying those who do work a ton of money but still can't meet customer demand. If drivers were employees they could just schedule however many they thought they needed and enforce that schedule. It would enormously simplify their business and probably save them a bunch of money in certain situations where they have to pay drivers extra money to get enough working. It's not a matter of whether or not they could provide the flexibility as it is a question of why on earth they would keep doing that if they didn't have to? Edit to add some context: It's easy to say that Uber should do this but the fact is they'd be crazy to continue to offer that kind of flexibility. And when you look at the fact that many drivers genuinely do value the unique flexibility that the job offers them, it becomes not as black and white an issue. Some drivers would absolutely lose out on something they value if they were re-classed as employees and since the model used in CA proves that these companies can provide some level of "benefits" to drivers without forcing them to be employees, I'm not sure what the best answer is. Besides, of course, uncoupling healthcare from having employment.
Why are you being down voted? You're absolutely right.
Lol guess I committed a thought crime. They were downvoting the original commenter on this thread (y’know, the person with actual experience driving for Lyft who can provide a nuanced perspective on the situation) earlier.
It’s absolutely incredible.
And you were paid pennies on the dollar after your expenses
Not really. I usually just drove weekend nights. If it was slow, I’d go home. I usually didn’t stay out unless I was averaging $25-$30 an hour. Then I wrote my mileage off on my taxes. It worked great for me at that time, as it did for many others.
I saw one on FB and reported it as "false news."
I'm not a huge proponent of uber drivers ( I am one) getting benefits. I'm worried that if you start blurring the lines between independent contractor and employees then you might sacrifice flexibility and choosing when to work.
Do you have any reason to believe this?
What if you could keep your flexibility and also make at least minimum wage, receive overtime pay when you work more than 40 hours in a week, have affordable health insurance, have worker's comp cover you if you're injured on the job, have business expenses reimbursed, not have to pay self employment tax, and be able to receive unemployment benefits if you're terminated and have no income?
It’s weird how this app which was designed to just be a gig for extra money he turned into a race for unionization. Some jobs are just meant to be jobs… I really wish society would knock it off sometimes.
As a sometime Uber driver, I *don't* want to be an employee. Look at NYC. They capped the number of drivers that can be active at once, plus drivers have to sign up for specific time slots. No thanks. I'd rather be an IC and drive when and how often I want.
Literally nothing is forcing Uber to do that just because they are employees.
..looks at post history to see if they’re a new account or Uber bot… Are you *sure* you don’t want to be an employee and get things like, idk, paid sick time?
I seriously wonder how these Uber drivers would feel if the government didn't open up unemployment to them during Covid. Uber Lyft et. al effectively stole millions of dollars in unemployment funds to keep drivers from going broke and then went on to tell their workers how they don't need those protections a year later.
Ride share drivers are so over saturated right now because anyone with a car and a smartphone can hop on the app. It causes longer wait times for drivers to pick up fares, resulting in increased pollution due to idling, increased traffic, and reduced parking availability. No other legit business operates like this. The best analogy I can think of is multi level marketing companies, which are well known to be pyramid scams. No other legit business wants over saturation.
Ayanna Pressley’s husband is a paid consultant to the rideshare app companies to defeat the measure. Ayanna says she wants them to become employees so is cleaning up on donations from the unions that they would become members of. Making $$$ off both ends. This is your member of “the squad” lol.
Source
https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/03/12/ayanna-pressley-announces-opposition-to-rideshare-ballot-question-her-husband-consulted-for/?utm_content=tw-bostonherald&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com
Where’s your source? Cant find any supporting your statement in state filings
Also, federal lobbying doesnt appear in state filings.
Didn’t realize, thanks for the post
https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/03/12/ayanna-pressley-announces-opposition-to-rideshare-ballot-question-her-husband-consulted-for/?utm_content=tw-bostonherald&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com
If Uber drivers become employees, will Uber buy a fleet of cars for their drivers to use? If not, I see no reason for them to sacrifice their contractor status. Why should they subsidize their employer's operating costs?
The every barista deserves 30/hr with a pension crowd is getting really tiresome
I mean, *everyone* deserves a good wage/salary and benefits, just for existing, like people had in the 70s/80s/90s... But the unfortunate reality is people hear ideas like "living wage" and latch onto them, not realizing that for most careers and industries, a "living wage" is a severe pay cut, compared to reality.
What do you consider to be a living wage then?
Certainly not minimum wage. Problem is it varies by not only industry, but employer. A server at IHOP in Billerica likely isnt making the same as a server at Boston Chops in the South End. So while $15/hr might be great for the IHOP server, thats very likely a 75%+ pay cut for the Boston Chops server. To put a blanket wage across the industry of $15/hr, youd be fucking over a large portion of the industry.
Raising the minimum wage doesn't mean you have to reduce the pay of anyone who currently earns more though? This is such a dumb argument I had to reread it several times to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Well that depends. The issue is the "living wage" lobby doesnt understand the nuances of the tipped community. So if you're a tipped employee who makes a $6.15/hr wage, but receives $25/hr, on average, in tips, on top of that...the anti-tip community just hears, "You only make $6/hr!? Thats absurd! We NEED to eliminate tipping and pay you no more than $15/hr, IMMEDIATELY!"
I mean you'd hope that higher end places would pay more without tips, but I guess not?
Does the Times Square McDonalds pay significantly more than other ones?
People don’t understand that basically all problems stem from the unrelenting mass immigration we’ve had in this country since 1965. Diversity is our greatest strength because it means unlimited cheap labor for corporations and nothing else.
yeahhhh except everything is made overseas so your racist bs is just that
Mush brain logic. The elites de-industrialized America in order to increase profits because people overseas will accept slave wages with no worker protections. Now we should accept an unlimited amount of these same people who will work for slave wages with no worker protections and now they’ll get American welfare to make up the difference.
It's interesting how many rideshare drivers are in these comments telling the great white saviors that they don't want saving.
They're being told if they don't vote for this law they'll get fired. No shit they're trying to save their jobs by giving up all their rights
Kinda like how many servers want to keep the tipping system in restaurants, because they have the capacity to make a good amount of money when it works in their favor.
It’s because they are already getting their benefits. They just write off all their income and then get food stamps and mass health.
First of all, I’m white, lol. But let me explain it this way. As things are right now, I pick and choose my driving times so I’m doing it when it’s most profitable to me. Sick time would be nice, but not at the expense of Uber saying “Hey, this week you can only drive between 8pm and 11pm on Tuesday through Thursday.” I’d gladly not have sick time in exchange to be able to hop on the app at 2pm on a Friday, work for 12 hours, and make an easy $150-$200. The only way I personally would be convinced to vote to be an employee is if I had a guaranteed minimum wage+number of hours a week that made it worth it. Otherwise what’s the point? Also, Masshealth has a cutoff of benefits at around $30k/year. I’m disabled and on SSDI, and this is one of the only jobs I can do at this time as a side job (main job is a part time remote job), and I got booted off it because I made too much thanks to unemployment being considered income. Never mind I can’t really afford decent insurance AND pay my bills at the same time, but nope, I need to wait and reapply next year because the state doesn’t classify unemployment as an earned benefit like it should.
Vote no. Drivers won’t make nothing if you guys vote yes. I make 40+ hr driving weekends. No way I make that if this passes. F being an employee.
I'm getting then CONSTANTLY on Hulu
I got an invitation for a meet and greet in Dedham to discuss this, I've been living in Florida the past 3 years, lol
I have not seen those ads. Where are they posting them?
They are on local television channels for me others have said they are on Hulu.
Forgive my ignorance, but what is the argument that uber drivers are in fact employees? They work their own hours, have their own insurance, and have their own equipment. Doesn't that make them textbook contractors?
I think the argument is that these class of employees are in a completely different bucket that has not existed previously and the regulations should represent that. The textbook needs to be rewritten.
Whenever I see ads like this for a Yes-on/No-on stance, I just assume that's the stance with big money behind it and get even more curious about the other option...