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By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
Uber Technologies has started locking out New York City drivers from its app when there is low demand, in an effort to dodge a minimum wage rule. Lyft has also threatened to do the same. As reported by Crain’s NY, some NYC drivers say their wages have dropped by up to 50 percent.
Uber and Lyft are pointing to a six-year-old pay rule in New York that, among other objectives, forces the ride apps to pay drivers for their idle time in between rides. The lockouts, initiated in May, attempt to limit how much non-passenger time drivers can log and be paid for. As a result, drivers are complaining that they must now work longer hours to earn the same amount as before. The lockouts happen without warning or notice, so that drivers have a harder time planning work shifts and working with Uber as a full-time job. The lockouts can sometimes last more than an hour. An Uber spokesperson said that access to the app is dependent on rider demand at that specific time and place. If the demand falls too far below supply, the company will temporarily shut drivers out.
Nikoloz Tsulukidze, who drives full time for Uber, said that he has been getting shut out of the app four or five times a day. “I used to work 10 hours and make $300 to $350,” Tsulukidze said. “Now, I just worked 10 hours and barely made $170. I was so disappointed.
I’m paying for my gas and cannot make money.” Similarly, Wesly Dorsainvil, another full-time Uber driver, said he used to earn between $300 and $400 per shift, but lately has been making between just $170 and about $200.
Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents 28,000 professional drivers in NYC, commented saying Uber “mismanaged” by initially allowing a surplus of drivers onto the platform, and is now punishing workers for it. Also to combat the excess drivers, as of April 2023, Uber froze new driver sign-ups, “largely due to” the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission’s pay rule, as per a statement on the company’s website. New drivers are now on waitlists to add their names.
As per Bloomberg, in mid-May, Uber sent its New York City drivers an email urging them to “let the TLC know the effect their rules have had” on their actual earnings. Desai said that Uber is ultimately “gaming the system,” by using a TLC regulation as an excuse to take “time that should be paid under the law and making it unpaid.” Desai said that the union would mull going on a strike if the lockouts continue.
Per Crain’s, the TLC’s minimum-pay formula calculates non-passenger time as an industry average—so that if Lyft drivers aren’t busy, Uber needs to increase driver pay and vice versa, because non-passenger time gets higher on average. This has led Uber and Lyft to blame each other for lockouts.
In a June 14 email, Lyft announced that it, too, would soon “have to” begin temporary driver freezes. “The current NYC pay formula is broken,” said Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin. “It forces rideshare companies to limit when drivers can earn, and therefore how much they can earn,” he said.
“The city’s rule bizarrely holds Uber responsible for Lyft’s failures,” said Uber spokesperson Freddi Goldstein.
