This Week: $30/Hour For Uber & Lyft Drivers? And Big Layoffs At Uber

This week in rideshare news – Uber lays off 350 employees in final round cuts and LA City Council proposes that Uber & Lyft pay their drivers $30 an hour.

Hey, what’s up? It’s Cecily and it’s This Week in Rideshare News.

LA City Council Proposes Uber & Lyft to Pay Drivers $30 an hour

Los Angeles joins the conversation as more cities look to rectify the proper living wage for Rideshare drivers. City Council President, Herb Wesson, presented a motion yesterday, requiring Rideshare companies to pay $30 per hour. That would be $15 for wages and $15 for operating expenses, such as gas, insurance, routine vehicle maintenance, what have you.

The thing that I found interesting is that the motion states that drivers will be paid $30 an hour base pay, and it says, considering period one and period two. If you’re not familiar with what the periods are, here’s a graph that I got here.

If this motion were to become law, drivers would be paid during period one and period two. El Monte, California, proposed a similar motion offering Rideshare drivers a $30 per booked hour, but it seems to be a base pay overall.

If you’re curious about the motion, and I’m just getting a little bit more information on what’s going on and the whole process, click the link in the description. I did reach out to Herb Wesson, and I have yet to receive any confirmation on what the pay will be for Rideshare drivers. Still waiting Herb.

Uber lays off 300 employees this week.

Uber lays off 300 employees this week. Uber CEO addressed the layoffs in a memo and referred to the wave of layoffs as, necessary changes to ensure that the organization is structured for success. The departments affected by the announcement include, Uber Eats, their self-driving, performance marketing segment, recruiting and advanced technology groups, as long as their global rides and platform units. The layoffs amount to roughly 1.5 of Uber’s workforce, which spans over 22,000 employees.

Creators of Billions are making a show about Uber

The co-creators behind Billions are now working on a series for Showtime about the drama at Uber. The show is based on a New York Times bestseller book, Super Pumped, The Battle for Uber. Details on the project are still being worked out because it’s in pre-production, obviously, but we do know that the series will focus on former CEO, Travis Kalanick and according to the Hollywood Reporter, it will depict the roller coaster ride of a company embodying highs and lows of the Silicon Valley.

Well, my hope is that some of the drivers will give their input and you know they have to add some of the Uber tubers. So hopefully we’ll see Harry Campbell up there and some of the other guys, like Kevin and myself.

So who do you guys think we’ll play Harry? More importantly, if they put me in it, you have to cast Jurnee Smollett-Bell.

Uber & Lyft Skip Congressional Hearing on Safety

Uber and Lyft decided to skip a congressional hearing this past Wednesday to the aggravation of the House of Transportation who are now threatening to press ahead with legislation without Uber and Lyft’s input. Now law makers criticized the company’s absence at the hearing, but it turned into an area where they were featuring testimony for labor and trade groups. That’s a good thing.

The panel focused questions on safety and worker issues and what have you, so there’s more information about the hearing and the legislation that they have planned. More information about the proposed legislation is in description. However, I just thought that this was really ballsy move by both companies just to decide not to go to the hearing. Now this isn’t the first time that both Uber and Lyft had decided not to show up for congressional hearings. There is some tension there obviously and I think, I mean you can’t run forever. I mean is that what I’m… Is that appropriate? That’s what I’m thinking. I don’t know. But definitely a developing story here and we will see what happens next.

… My favorite segment is what would you do and I don’t know if I have the right answer so maybe you guys can help out and I saw some answers in the comments so maybe we all can just collaborate on this one.

Saw this one on Facebook. I am so mad. I woke up this morning, turned on my app like I always do at 3:30 AM. Good for you girl. Uber asked me to take a picture. I took my picture. It asked me to take off my glasses and I had no glasses on. Then I took another picture and it told me to contact customer service. They said my account was deactivated indefinitely because my identity wasn’t verified. I called and I talked to two people. I’m like, “It’s my face. I didn’t have glasses on. I just woke up and my eyes were kind of puffy, but it was me.” That happens to me all the time. I asked if I go to the office or something and show them my ID and my face and she said, “No, I cannot drive for Uber anymore.” Crazy. Oh my God.

So a few women actually said that the same thing happened to them and they’re no longer on the platform. Lucky though a few other girls said, you just have to go to the Uber hub. You have to talk to a live person. You need to keep talking to people until they say yes. So it sounds like if this happens to you, all is not lost. Some people have been able to get back on the platform. You just have to keep fighting; have to keep talking to people because not everybody knows what to do and it’s just easier to tell you that there’s nothing they can do. So if this happens to you, if you have a hub near you, go there. If you’re not able to get to a hub, get on the phone and call and talk and talk and talk. This has happened to a bunch of people and make sure that you let them know that this has happened to other folks.

Has this happened to you? Have you had any issues with the identification software? Let me know in the comments. Yeah, that’s it. So if you like this video, give us a thumbs up. If you’re not subscribed to this channel, please subscribe right now. I’ll wait and if you’re curious about me and what I do, my name is Cecily and I have a channel called Tribe Girl Drive and see you here next week. Bye.