This Week: Seattle Orders Uber and Lyft To Pay Minimum Wage, Tip Thief Caught on Video

Welcome back to this week in Rideshare news! This weeks headlines:

• Dashcam records woman stealing uber drivers tips and it goes viral
• Seattle approves rideshare minimum wage for drivers
• NYC rideshare minimum wage
• Food delivery services are expanding their base 

Hey there. My name is Cecily Jamelia, and welcome back to this week in Rideshare and Gig Economy News. I got some good stuff for you guys this week, so I appreciate you guys coming on by. A dash cam records a woman stealing her Uber drivers tips, and that video goes viral. Seattle approves a minimum wage for both Uber and Lyft drivers. Got to love it. Food delivery services are now expanding their base to keep up in the pandemic, and I found one of the first No on Prop 22 commercials that I’ve seen. All that and more it’s this week in Rideshare News.

A woman caught stealing money out of her Uber drivers tip jar has now had a change of heart after that video went viral. The driver says first that he confronted her, but she denied it and he uploaded the video to Reddit for some support.

Even later after people confronted her, this young lady still mocked him and she has now since apologized for stealing the money. Uber has since banned her from the platform. They are trying to reach out to the driver to offer support.

While Uber and Lyft are leaning toward food delivery, food delivery companies like Instacart and Doordash are moving outside of food to partner with brick and mortar businesses for same day delivery. The latest example of this partnership would be Bed Bath and Beyond partnering with Instacart and Shipt for the same day delivery option. Sephora and 7/11, a huge chain, also partner with Instacart as well. As you know, Doordash has created Dash Mart where they partner with convenience stores in your area and Walmart has also implemented same day delivery on a lot of their items as well.

With only 31 days to the election, California drivers are now in a heated debate about Prop 22. Now, if you guys live here, you’ve seen a ton of commercials, ads, billboards, and now text messages for yes on Prop 22. Well, I think I might have found the first ad for no on Prop 22 that I’ve seen, maybe you’ve seen some, and I just wanted to keep things balanced because I know some of you guys do support both sides.

Taking California for a ride. Companies like Uber, Lyft, Doordash breaking state employment laws for years. Now these multi-billion dollar companies wrote deceptive Prop 22 to buy themselves a new law to deny drivers the rights they deserve. No sick leave, no workers’ comp, no unemployment benefits. Vote no on the deceptive Uber, Lyft, Doordash Prop 22. One ride California doesn’t want to take.

Now, drivers, you guys that don’t live in California I see your comments, I feel your pain, I understand what’s happening in California doesn’t affect you directly. This is a huge, huge, huge battle for us and it will become a huge battle for you. Just know that whatever happens here is probably going to happen in your market as well, so please put up with us for the next four weeks while we all lose our minds and try to persuade all of our family members to vote one way or another. It’s a very, very important landmark decision for what’s going to happen next with rideshare. So my hope is that you tolerate it for the next four weeks while we get through it.

Now, the city of Seattle approves a minimum wage of $16.39 for both Uber and Lyft drivers. Seattle, you guys are doing good things over there. The city council unanimously approved a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers this past Tuesday, following El Monte last fall and New York a couple of years ago. The new regulation goes into effect in January 2020. I can’t wait to see if it actually happens.

Now, it’s a few years since New York city implemented a minimum wage, so I wanted to find an article or some news stating how this may have worked, or it’s a disaster. There’s an article called “Uber Wage Experiment Actually Worked.” Basically two years ago, NYC approved a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft and drivers overall said that on the upside, they made more money per trip, on the downside and they couldn’t work when they wanted to and obviously prices went up for PAC. So, with the amount of protests I’ve seen in New York City since then, I don’t think, if you were to ask me, I don’t think that all drivers are happy with the changes and they still want some sort of government intervention for whatever reason, I don’t know because I’m not from there.

I wasn’t able to find anything to confirm if Uber or Lyft actually upheld the $30 minimum wage set last October in El Monte. If anyone knows, let me know. I looked all over the internet, couldn’t find anything, but I figured that this would be a perfect setup for this week’s What Would You Do? Now, do you think that $16 per hour is enough money to drive for Uber or Lyft? Last year, like I said, El Monte proposed a $30 an hour minimum pay. Half would be for yourself, that $15 for yourself and $15 would go towards expenses. Again, I don’t know if they ever held up their part of the deal and actually paid it out. I don’t know if it worked or not, but you’re out there every single day, you know what it is, what would be an appropriate wage? What would be an appropriate wage to pay the driver right now today? Let me know in the comments.

That’s it for me this week. If you liked this video, please give me a thumbs up. I still check every single time. If you have any tips or you want to see something, you can always hit me up on my YouTube channel, which is Drive Girl Drive or my Facebook, which is also Drive Girl Drive. I appreciate the love I get from you guys every single week. You find me here every single Saturday morning at 6:00 AM. Please be safe, god bless, peace out.