These apps killed the livelihoods of cab drivers, many of whom were immigrants and put their life savings into a medallion, and had years of experience driving in their area. Their cabs were inspected for safety. They were vetted. Now the tech bros disrupters came in and sold a lot of people on "freedom". One thing got workers don't stop to think about is that they're not paying into Social Security. My brother worked off the books for years and now complains he's getting all of $700 a month in benefits.
These companies should have to hire and pay workers just like any other company, when you're on the job you are guaranteed a wage that is high enough to make your time as valuable as the corporate raiders that are behind all these gig worker schemes. And also they should be forced to pay into Social Security like any other employer.
Judd, I subscribe to this excellent news letter and I’m more than happy to do so. I understand that not everyone is able to support a few different Substacts or more. It is a Fascist move to block truthful reporting.
I am happy to hear about the strikes and happy to see so many workers fight for unions etc.
So many companies hire Consultants to avoid paying for security of the job, medical coverage, paid time off etc. As with everything in a corrupt country…follow the money. Company CEOs pulling in multi-millions and multi billions tells us everything we need to know. They are not passing along the earnings to people making their companies run!
I quoted Popular Information in a letter to the editor of our local paper, Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune Feb. 14th:
I'm dumbfounded by the Star Tribune's reprint on Feb. 12 of a recent Wall Street Journal editorial titled "Biden's doddering document defense." It's about special counsel Robert Hur's nearly 400-page report concluding that charges against President Joe Biden for mishandling classified materials are unwarranted. Hur also opined that Biden had a "poor memory" and "diminished faculties." The Star Tribune reprint spends little or no time on the charging decision and all time on the memory conclusions. Well, here's the point: Hur is a lawyer, not a medical professional. He lacks any qualifications to determine or to arrive at medical conclusions of any kind concerning memory. Any conclusion that memory might be a defense before some future jury is pure nonlegal speculation.
As reported by Judd Legum in the newsletter Popular Information on Feb. 12, the Wall Street Journal (and hence the Star Tribune) reports Hur's amateur medical judgments as a political crisis for Biden and an existential threat to his re-election campaign. Legum points out, "The actual threat to Biden's political prospects is the deluge of negative media coverage based on Hur's conjecture." He also reports that "just three major papers — the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal — collectively published 81 articles about Hur's assessment of Biden's memory in the four days following the release of Hur's report." Only one of those stories mentioned a key fact, Legum says: Hur is completely unqualified to render a judgment on Biden's mental capacity. The Wall Street Journal did not produce any articles explaining that Hur's evaluation of Biden's mental health has no medical basis. Nor does the Star Tribune.
More power to the drivers. Wage theft funds so much benefit for the same companies you addressed in the tax breaks yesterday. Workers need a collective across the board that would set a day a year to hold a massive strike. A huge Shut Down every year would be a wallet hit to Big Corps and gnashing of teeth at the US Chamber of Commerce and in the GOP. Would make a great movie. LoL. Ferris Bueller and his co-workers go on Strike.
I use Instacart and DoorDash all the time. Last week I learned Instacart lowered shoppers’ per-order rate from $7 to $4. Customers are encouraged to tip on percentage, not mentioning that if items are refunded the %tip drops. I now tip specific amounts and add $3 to make up the base.
Thank you Tesnim and Rebecca for taking up the cause of a large group of lower income workers who do not benefit from the huge profit success of their employers. Remember, Biden nominated Julie Su to be the next Secretary of Labor. She cares about the issues in this report:
"I believe in the transformative power of America, and I know the transformative power of a good job," Su said. "To all workers who are toiling in the shadows, to workers who are organizing for power and respect in the workplace, know that we see you."
It seems that Republicans (including Joe Manchin[enemy of low wage workers] and probably Kristin Sinema) voted against her. Biden has made her "Acting Sec'y of Labor."
I was a Lyft and Uber driver off and on for two years during times of unemployment, and it was one of the hardest jobs that I had ever done. I made very little money. And my car was damaged beyond repair, driving up and down hills of city roads for over eight hours a day.
All labor needs to be paid a living wage . A REAL living wage. So many of us enjoy cheap groceries (yes cheap) , cheap tee shirts , cheap lawn care , the list goes on. The American middle class life style is dependent on the exploitation of workers. Workers here in the US and world wide. The real cost of things when you factor in unfair wages and pollution and toxins in the water and terrible air quality is much higher. So
On another note, I have to sign into this comment section every single time I start to respond to some else’s comment. My husband thinks someone hacked in somewhere possibly on the Substack end.
I wonder if anyone else has experienced this. Sometimes it says I need to subscribe but I am already a paid subscriber. It seems designed to discourage discourse. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Here is a little secret for the Democrat collectivists in the room. Nobody in this country is a slave to their job. Don’t like what your job pays, then quit and go do something else. Oh but the Democrat collectivists have taxed and regulated and globalisted and immigrated until there are not enough good paying jobs for people with crushing student loan debt for their prestigious victim studies degree. See how that works? It is the Shirky Principle. Need those coastal liberal luxury virtue signaling beliefs.
Thank you for writing this. I shared this post with the wonderful Uber driver who drives me home from work every day. He and his fellow drivers are thrilled that journalists are writing about the working conditions at these companies.
He did say that Lyft’s statement about drivers earning 70% of the fare is a half truth. Drivers are paid 70% after all fees and taxes are taken from the riders’ fare. The drivers end up making about 40-45% of the total fare.
These apps killed the livelihoods of cab drivers, many of whom were immigrants and put their life savings into a medallion, and had years of experience driving in their area. Their cabs were inspected for safety. They were vetted. Now the tech bros disrupters came in and sold a lot of people on "freedom". One thing got workers don't stop to think about is that they're not paying into Social Security. My brother worked off the books for years and now complains he's getting all of $700 a month in benefits.
Good for the strikers.
Enough of this "gig economy"/"side hustle" nonsense. Pay these drivers a fair wage.
These companies should have to hire and pay workers just like any other company, when you're on the job you are guaranteed a wage that is high enough to make your time as valuable as the corporate raiders that are behind all these gig worker schemes. And also they should be forced to pay into Social Security like any other employer.
Maybe, I’ll simply go back to using taxis instead of mistreated, Uber and Lyft drivers.
Judd, I subscribe to this excellent news letter and I’m more than happy to do so. I understand that not everyone is able to support a few different Substacts or more. It is a Fascist move to block truthful reporting.
I am happy to hear about the strikes and happy to see so many workers fight for unions etc.
So many companies hire Consultants to avoid paying for security of the job, medical coverage, paid time off etc. As with everything in a corrupt country…follow the money. Company CEOs pulling in multi-millions and multi billions tells us everything we need to know. They are not passing along the earnings to people making their companies run!
I quoted Popular Information in a letter to the editor of our local paper, Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune Feb. 14th:
I'm dumbfounded by the Star Tribune's reprint on Feb. 12 of a recent Wall Street Journal editorial titled "Biden's doddering document defense." It's about special counsel Robert Hur's nearly 400-page report concluding that charges against President Joe Biden for mishandling classified materials are unwarranted. Hur also opined that Biden had a "poor memory" and "diminished faculties." The Star Tribune reprint spends little or no time on the charging decision and all time on the memory conclusions. Well, here's the point: Hur is a lawyer, not a medical professional. He lacks any qualifications to determine or to arrive at medical conclusions of any kind concerning memory. Any conclusion that memory might be a defense before some future jury is pure nonlegal speculation.
As reported by Judd Legum in the newsletter Popular Information on Feb. 12, the Wall Street Journal (and hence the Star Tribune) reports Hur's amateur medical judgments as a political crisis for Biden and an existential threat to his re-election campaign. Legum points out, "The actual threat to Biden's political prospects is the deluge of negative media coverage based on Hur's conjecture." He also reports that "just three major papers — the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal — collectively published 81 articles about Hur's assessment of Biden's memory in the four days following the release of Hur's report." Only one of those stories mentioned a key fact, Legum says: Hur is completely unqualified to render a judgment on Biden's mental capacity. The Wall Street Journal did not produce any articles explaining that Hur's evaluation of Biden's mental health has no medical basis. Nor does the Star Tribune.
More power to the drivers. Wage theft funds so much benefit for the same companies you addressed in the tax breaks yesterday. Workers need a collective across the board that would set a day a year to hold a massive strike. A huge Shut Down every year would be a wallet hit to Big Corps and gnashing of teeth at the US Chamber of Commerce and in the GOP. Would make a great movie. LoL. Ferris Bueller and his co-workers go on Strike.
I use Instacart and DoorDash all the time. Last week I learned Instacart lowered shoppers’ per-order rate from $7 to $4. Customers are encouraged to tip on percentage, not mentioning that if items are refunded the %tip drops. I now tip specific amounts and add $3 to make up the base.
Thank you Tesnim and Rebecca for taking up the cause of a large group of lower income workers who do not benefit from the huge profit success of their employers. Remember, Biden nominated Julie Su to be the next Secretary of Labor. She cares about the issues in this report:
"I believe in the transformative power of America, and I know the transformative power of a good job," Su said. "To all workers who are toiling in the shadows, to workers who are organizing for power and respect in the workplace, know that we see you."
It seems that Republicans (including Joe Manchin[enemy of low wage workers] and probably Kristin Sinema) voted against her. Biden has made her "Acting Sec'y of Labor."
I was a Lyft and Uber driver off and on for two years during times of unemployment, and it was one of the hardest jobs that I had ever done. I made very little money. And my car was damaged beyond repair, driving up and down hills of city roads for over eight hours a day.
Take a cab.
I always wondered how Uber could last, unless all the drivers were just retirees looking for something to do.
All labor needs to be paid a living wage . A REAL living wage. So many of us enjoy cheap groceries (yes cheap) , cheap tee shirts , cheap lawn care , the list goes on. The American middle class life style is dependent on the exploitation of workers. Workers here in the US and world wide. The real cost of things when you factor in unfair wages and pollution and toxins in the water and terrible air quality is much higher. So
On another note, I have to sign into this comment section every single time I start to respond to some else’s comment. My husband thinks someone hacked in somewhere possibly on the Substack end.
I wonder if anyone else has experienced this. Sometimes it says I need to subscribe but I am already a paid subscriber. It seems designed to discourage discourse. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Here is a little secret for the Democrat collectivists in the room. Nobody in this country is a slave to their job. Don’t like what your job pays, then quit and go do something else. Oh but the Democrat collectivists have taxed and regulated and globalisted and immigrated until there are not enough good paying jobs for people with crushing student loan debt for their prestigious victim studies degree. See how that works? It is the Shirky Principle. Need those coastal liberal luxury virtue signaling beliefs.
Thank you for writing this. I shared this post with the wonderful Uber driver who drives me home from work every day. He and his fellow drivers are thrilled that journalists are writing about the working conditions at these companies.
He did say that Lyft’s statement about drivers earning 70% of the fare is a half truth. Drivers are paid 70% after all fees and taxes are taken from the riders’ fare. The drivers end up making about 40-45% of the total fare.