By Will Bredderman
Who speaks for Uber drivers?
As market
saturation and driver suicides wrack the taxi and black-car industry,
and the city gears up for another street fight with ride-hail apps,
three powerhouse unions are in an equally heated drag race to represent
car operators working under Uber, Lyft and their competitors. All call
themselves the definitive voice of tens of thousands of drivers and
claim the others are frauds.
One twist
in this union fight is that Uber and Lyft drivers are independent
contractors, not employees, and thus cannot bargain collectively. That
has become one of the biggest disputes among the combatants: the
Independent Drivers Guild (an offshoot of the International Association
of Machinists), the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (aligned with and
partly staffed by building workers union 32BJ SEIU) and the Amalgamated
Transit Union.
As proof of
its legitimacy, the Taxi Workers Alliance, a volunteer organization
founded in 1998 to organize drivers of yellow cabs, cites its lawsuits
to get app-dispatch drivers recognized as employees of the tech giants.
One of those suits won unemployment benefits for some Uber drivers;
another, accusing the company of misclassifying its entire workforce,
found the company skimming its hacks' fares.
Battling Uber, 'opportunists'
The
alliance contrasts itself from the IDG, which came into existence in
2016 after the Machinists reached an accord with Uber. In exchange for
the company's recognizing the Guild as the representative of Uber
drivers and helping fund the organization's internal operations, the
Machinists agreed not to push for employee status.
"It's not
defending workers' rights when you decide that workers who don't have
the ability to set the price of their labor are contractors," said
Eugenio Villasantes, a spokesman for Taxi Workers Alliance benefactor
32BJ.
"We not
only had to fight the company that had become the highest valuated
company on earth," said the alliance's executive director, Bharivai
Desai, "we also had to fight opportunists in the labor movement that
were trying to be the first to make a deal with Uber."
The IDG
denied Desai's accusation that it is a "company union." Noting that
Desai's husband is a taxi medallion owner, the Guild insinuates that her
group's push for regulations on apps—notably Mayor Bill de Blasio's
failed 2015 plan to cap their growth—are really attempts to drive the
new tech companies out of the market.
IDG steward
Sohail Rana defended his organization's acceptance of Uber funding,
saying it has paid for legal assistance, classes and organizing space
for drivers. He said IDG petitions had compelled Uber and Lyft to
introduce in-app tipping, and the IDG is now lobbying the Taxi and
Limousine Commission to mandate minimum pay for drivers.
"These other organizations, they were not there," said Rana. "IDG is the only union that really helps drivers in real time."
The ATU,
which has long represented bus drivers, argues that it is the most
natural fit for the industry and claims it has gotten 16,000 drivers to
sign union cards since 2016. The ATU's competition dismissed this as a
stunt because the drivers are classified as contractors and cannot join
the union.
But the ATU deemed it "an experiment" that could lead to
something dramatic.
"All organizing is to prepare for a strike," Chris Townsend, director of field mobilization for ATU Local 1181, told Crain's.
Townsend demurred on whether such an action was imminent and said his
union focuses on getting legal assistance for aggrieved drivers.
De Blasio
and the City Council recently reopened discussion of passing legislation
to contain the sector's astronomical growth, though a consensus has yet
to emerge on how. The Taxi Workers Alliance has revived its calls to
limit the number of new vehicles the Taxi and Limousine Commission can
approve; the IDG has demanded a cap on the number of new drivers. Uber
and Lyft, meanwhile, appear to be revving their engines for another
fight.
Meera Joshi, chairwoman of the TLC, told Crain's
its 180,000 licensed drivers would continue to be a target for union
organizing. But she warned that the labor groups' disunity and
self-interest could hobble efforts to curb the tech giants. "Because
there is this hostility of 'who's going to own this space?,' it could
end up being counterproductive," she said. "There's a question of, will
any regulation come out at all? Why don't you focus on that, instead of
fighting each other?"
© 2018 Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment