Today, Uber released its 3rd quarter earnings report to investors a week after Lyft released theirs. Uber lost $1.2 billion in Q3 and laid off over 1,000 workers. Even Wall St is calling Uber a “horror show”. While investors are positioning to be able to sell their stocks as executives continue to pad their pockets, Gig Workers Rising is pushing back saying that these earnings reports and investor cash outs only crystalize the exploitative business models of these companies that keep drivers struggling to make ends meet while company executives and investors get richer. Just last week, Uber pledged to invest $30m million to launch a deceptive ballot initiative to upend all of the progress drivers made through AB 5.
“Uber’s whole business model is predicated on exploiting people like me. It’s a devastating form of capitalism that clearly doesn’t work. Every month my take home is lower even though they increase costs for consumers and take higher commissions. The company might not be profitable but the execs have taken out millions for themselves. The way we drivers can change this is by organizing together and refusing to allow Uber to continue to exploit us for the personal gain of Uber bosses.” – Steve Gregg, Bay Area, driver, Gig Workers Rising
Q3 2019 hedge fund letters, conferences and more
WHAT’S NEXT: #DeactivateUberBillionaires on Wednesday
Drivers (organizing as part of the We Drive Progress coalition) have planned large-scale protests outside the homes of Uber’s soon-to-be billionaires on November 6, the first day investors and top executives will be able to cash out their stock from the company’s May IPO. As reported in VICE, “rideshare drivers plan to demonstrate outside at least three investors’ homes and offices, including Uber venture capitalist Bill Gurley in Silicon Valley and Uber co-founder Garrett Camp in Los Angeles.”
The actions are part of a growing movement of drivers to call attention to the greed at the top of the gig corporations, which claim they can’t pay drivers fair wages even as the companies’ top brass stand to make windfalls.
Background on "deceptive ballot measure":
Uber’s Monday earnings call comes just days after Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Postmates and Instacart filed a deceptive ballot measure that would strip drivers of the rights they won by joining together and organizing to pass AB 5 (Gonzalez) this year, a significant step forward in their path for economic security and a union.
The platform companies have responded to the growing driver movement by using their millions to try to buy democracy away from drivers with a deceptive ballot measure filed last week in California. Uber drivers have vowed to continue their fight, growing and building their movement that made AB 5 (Gonzalez) law and showing the power and commitment drivers have to transform how these companies do business.
Gig Workers Rising is a California based campaign that supports drivers and other app workers who are fighting for a living wage, a voice at work, and real benefits from companies like Uber and Lyft.
