What We're Fighting For, Part 2
Over the past several years, riders have likely noticed the price of their rideshare trips steadily increasing. And it would be fair for them to imagine that this means the driver behind the wheel is seeing a corresponding increase in the pay they take home. But the opposite is true.
In 2018, Oregon drivers earned $1.85 per mile and 15 cents per minute. Today, that’s fallen to 70 cents per mile and 24 cents per minute, a 47% pay cut on a typical trip. What’s more, this mammoth attack on driver pay is now being overtaken by an even more calculated attack on driver pay: algorithmic pay discrimination, or “up-front pay”.
What the rideshare industry calls “up-front pay” is a data-driven up-front pay cut; drivers are told the amount that they’ll be paid for a trip with only seconds to accept or reject it, often while they’re driving their previous passenger. That pay offer is determined by black box algorithms with access to vast troves of driver data, capable of using driver trip history to offer drivers the lowest price that they’re likely to accept.
If rideshare platforms are using proprietary technology to drive down pay while charging passengers ever more, where is the money going? Earlier this year, UBER CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was granted stock options valued at nearly $140 million in excess of his $24 million in take home pay while the company witnessed record profits. Those profits were used to buy-back $7 billion in UBER stock, with additional buy-backs rumored to follow. Stock buy-backs are a favored tool of executives who receive a large portion of their pay in stock options, because they increase the value of those options.
That’s why we’re fighting for fair pay.
When we see executive pay and rideshare industry profits soar even as riders are paying more and drivers are getting paid less, we know the time is right for organized worker power to win back basic rights.
That’s why Oregon’s drivers need a minimum pay standard that ensures that they earn no less than minimum wage after expenses, based on per minute and per mile minimum pay for each trip, with inflation indexing to ensure the gains endure.
No Oregon worker should be forced to work long hours fighting to feed their family for sub-minimum wage pay. That’s what we’re fighting for.
