This Week: Are Drivers Being Paid to Protest AB5?

This week in rideshare news: Uber and Lyft drivers were paid to protest the AB5 bill that would make them employees, drivers are being charged 100 times their fare, and a group of rideshare drivers bully another driver.

Which riders are being charged a hundred times their fare. Uber and Lyft pays drivers to protest in a group of rideshare drivers, bully another driver. It’s this week and rideshare news.

Hey guys, it’s kind of a slow week but I found some gems for you so I hope that you guys hold on tight cause I got, I’m working. I’m doing this for you. I’m doing this for you.

My Uber ride cost 100 times that

My first story is an interesting one kind of a key. Several Uber passengers found themselves getting charged 10 times the amount. Okay. That they were supposed to be charged as reported on Twitter. Cause that’s where we’re getting our news right now. Several people were complaining about owing $9.73, but Uber actually taking $9,730 my take on this was like, y’all got that much money in the bank. I mean I just wanna know who’s got the money, who doesn’t? But apparently people took to Twitter to complain about it. It’s funny because you see all these news organizations reaching out to get like a, a comment from these people.

But more importantly, I don’t see Uber support responding to really most of these people. And so you can imagine if you’re paying way more, I mean like way more than you owe and uh, not being able to call somebody they take away from this, and I’m probably going to do this too, is to make sure that my debit cards that are tied to all my money are not linked to my Uber account. From this point on, I’m going to tie my Uber to their accounts where I just keep a little bit of money in there. Cause if you try to get $9,000 from me, you won’t be able to get that over. I’m gonna listen to right now. It’s not happening. If you want to hear more about the story, there’s a link in the comments.

Here’s What Our Dream Rideshare Company Would Look Like

About a month ago Jay and I came up with a video called The Perfect Rideshare Company. Both he and I came up with a scenario that we thought would be best for rideshare. I was reading the New York Times and I read an article about how drivers can be Uber and Lyft at their game. And one thing I’m sure I didn’t think about him and possibly Jay didn’t think about either, is that Uber prohibits drivers actually organizing, but we never thought to forming a corporation. And according to this article, I’m gonna read it to you. If drivers incorporated their own joint venture, they could reduce their antitrust liability exposure risk while protecting their ability to coordinate and their negotiations with rideshare companies and their interactions with customers. So drivers will maintain the same compensation structure and flexibility as they do contracting directly with the platforms working flexible hours, receiving per right salary commissions while donating a portion equivalent to the amount they might otherwise pay in union dues to their newly formed Uber drivers incorporated.

So, there’s a lot here in this, in this article, and I don’t want to read it all to you, but I don’t think I’ve heard anyone approach this way and I really think that someone should try it. I really honestly do. I think that if drivers work to create their own company, and I honestly think that truth, that the best and rideshare is yet to come and it will come from a bunch of drivers, people who have been doing this for a long time coming together and creating a solution that will benefit all. And so, I’m going to leave a link in the description regarding this article and our link to Jay and my video, which I’m sure you guys gonna have a lot of comments about, especially my scenario wasn’t very solid but it was a fun conversation.

But while we’re talking about AB5 being passed and moving to, you know, to the Senate, a lot of people are involved in the conversation of creating a better scenario for independent contractors and especially for drivers. Cause there’s millions of people who are on the road here specifically in California and doing this type of work. And I know it’s split down the board who wants to be employee, who wants to remain an independent contractor. But bottom line, if AB5 passes a driver’s to have, live a better life, to make more money, to have more benefits, to be able to, uh, plan for retirement and that sort of thing. And though I like the independent contractor status, I think that if people prefer to drive for a living or, or prefer to make money this way for an extended amount of time, you should be able to receive benefits as well. So that’s my take on it. Let me know what your thoughts are. I don’t think I’ve asked you guys that question yet. And you can find those links to the video that I discussed and the article and the description.

Uber and Lyft drivers were paid up to $100 to protest a bill?

Speaking of AB5 passing and there were rallies in Sacramento and I thought I heard this in as was video. I thought I heard this. There was a guy that said something about, I’m just here for the food and the money. I thought I heard that

Driver: The only reason I’m here is for the free food and, and, and I was also promised a a hundred dollars gift card, right?

Yeah. According to the Los Angeles Times, there were several Uber and Lyft drivers that were paid from the amounts of 25 to $100 to attend the rally. And let me read this verbatim.

Drivers who attended the rally were offered and are expected to receive $25 to $100 within five days of gathering in Sacramento to cover “travel, parking, and time,” according to an email The Times obtained. The email was sent to drivers from the I’m Independent Coalition, a group funded by the California Chamber of Commerce, along with a long list of professional associations, trade groups and on-demand companies. The coalition has been working closely alongside Uber and Lyft to call for changes to AB 5 and helped organize the Tuesday rally. The money was noted as a gift and thank you for traveling and supporting the rally. I believe it was intended for people who already felt strongly about maintaining their independence status. But, yeah, I found it interesting that the Los Angeles Times picked up on that and some politicians feel like it’s a worrying trend that some companies are willing to pay for support and that some of these people who are actually accepting the money possibly need it and don’t actually realize that the longterm goal of this bill is actually intended to help them.

And so there’s more in this article if you’re interested, that link is in the description. If you attended the rally and you received money for it,  let us know if anyone’s brave enough actually they share that they actually support or not support, not support AB5 and that you attended the rally and you received monetary compensation for it. That’s not what your reasons were. Did you just want the money? Did you already feel like you were in support of AB5, not passing and they just gave you a nice little, you know, money for your time. I’ll let me know in the comments. For those of you that are support of AB5, hearing that some of the attendees were offered money, how do you feel about it? Curious about how you guys feel. Let me know. And this one is a little complicated, but I think we might be able to come to a solution, some of us anyway, so I was reading the forms the other day and I came across this one and it’s a guy who was being bullied by a group of other drivers and if you drive in an area all the time, this is something that could potentially happen to you. Let me read his note. He says, so I’m being bullied by a group of Lyft drivers that are making foul and horrific accusations to others and live police are involved in even got my account put on hold until the investigation was done. Live investigation chief was amazing and got proof and confirmed all the accusations are false. So I’m back up and running and it only lasted a couple of days, but I can’t drive out of the airport due to the amount of harassment.

What would you do? If you’re bullied by another driver?

And now for my favorite segment, it’s called the, what would you do? I’m not sure what that means. The things they are saying and doing are disgusting. Could someone please give me advice? Working at the airport queue a few days a week is the only way I, I make what I need weekly live. There’s helping but please can someone help or give me some advice. Now we don’t know enough to know what, how to help he or she, I don’t know what’s horrific. I Dunno, it’s disgusting. But I do know that this person is being bullied and this, like I said, it’s something that there’s a potential of this. In fact, I have heard of occurrences where some drivers have seen other drivers doing things they didn’t like and they immediately take pictures of their licenses and contact Uber or Lyft and say, hey, this person’s doing this and this person doing that. Like basically drivers are lying on each other.

This person B is, is asking how to, I’m assuming how to keep from going through this. Is it easy, easy solution? You, you need to either run that driver the airport or change your hours. They can’t, they are that tight where they have the airport on lot 24/7 drive in another time. But this also goes to show you, this is a reason why you should have a dash cam if they’re saying that you’re doing certain things. If you have a dash cam to prove that a well, what time did they say it? Cause I was doing x, Y and Z. There’s your proof on top of that. I would always encourage you to change up where you drive, change up, where you taxi, where you hang out at, in between places. Because people, especially people who are looking to pick up your habits, like they’re interested in your life, they’re interested in what they, what you’re doing.

They see you all the time. They’re going to, they’re going to be able to easily find out where you are and what you’re doing. It’s not that hard. If somebody just followed you around, they can figure it out and if every Tuesday you go to the airport between 5 and 7 and you do x, y, Z, then it won’t be hard for them to figure out what it is you do. And I, and a lot of times drivers are curious about what you’re doing because they want to see what works for you. If you looks like you’re doing something, if it’s effortless for you to make money, especially when I first started, bunch of people were like messaging me like, Oh, where do you go? What do you do? Why? Because they wanted to do, they wanted to do at work. They wanted to, they didn’t want to think about it.

They didn’t want to have to try to do it. They just wanted someone to help them and they were like, all I need is for someone to think and tell me where to go. I don’t want to have to do that for myself. So in a marketing, especially if it’s really competitive and it looks like you’re doing well, then they’re definitely going to come after you. But if they’re, it sounds like to me like y’all couldn’t be making that much money for you guys to be paying attention to each other and I wouldn’t put myself in a place where any group of people would sit here and be concerned about what I’m doing. So if I would try to find a way to not be drive while these people are driving or to not drive in this area at all. What are your thoughts on this issue?

Have any of you experienced this before? I know it’s bizarre, but like I’m sure it’s happening to plenty of people, especially in the smaller markets. Let me know in the comments. I really appreciate you guys hanging in there with me week after week. It’s really awesome to read your guys’ comments. If you’re not subscribed to Harry’s Channel, please do so, that button is below the red button. Hit it, subscribe. And if you’re not sure about who I am and what I do, my name is Cecily, and I have a channel called Drive Girl Drive here on Youtube. And you can also contact me with news stories and tips on Facebook and what else? Yeah, that’s it. Hope you guys have a great week and I’ll talk to you next week. I’ll be having some stories for you. Okay, bye. Okay, bye.