More than a thousand drivers for the Uber and Lyft apps marched in protest in front of City Hall and headed to Uber offices to demand that the companies stop blocking customers’ waiting times, which they say costs them a lot of money.
“What’s happening is that everyone is complaining because you’re here in this area (and) they deactivate you, so you have to look for a place for it to come in again,” said Juan Ferreira, an Uber driver.
Ferreira is retired and has been working with Uber for three years.
“That affects you, it affects you a lot because you are in an area and they take you away.”
According to the protesters, they lose hundreds of dollars a week due to the blockade.
The app sends them a message in the middle of their shift when they drop off a passenger, saying they can’t get back online to continue working, the director of the New York Taxi Drivers Alliance said.
In March of last year, the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) adjusted the payment formula for the Uber and Lyft apps for the time a driver spends waiting without any passengers in their vehicle, but according to many drivers, since May of this year, the app began deactivating them during their shift.
Ferreira.
In response to the protest, the Lyft company issued a statement stating:
“Lyft wants drivers to succeed, but New York City’s current pay formula doesn’t work because the way it measures utilization is stacked against drivers.”
While TLC said that these blockages are due to the number of drivers working for these applications.
For its part, Uber noted:
“We stopped adding new drivers in January. With a rule that groups the industry together instead of holding each company accountable, there is only so much we can do.”
For its part, TLC sent a statement:
“We heard NYTWA and the city’s contract drivers loud and clear, and if the companies don’t address this issue soon, we will.”
For Ferreira, the commission and the companies must find a solution to this problem that affects more than 80 thousand drivers who work in the city.
“Of course, they have to change this because they didn’t do it before, so why now? So Uber says it’s TLC (the Taxi and Limousine Commission), TLC says it’s Uber.”
Drivers say that if companies do not meet their demands, thousands of drivers are planning to go on strike.
____
We invite you to visit us on the new NY1 Noticias channel on WhatsApp. There you will find the most relevant news about what is happening in New York, as well as other coverage about the rest of the country, Latin America and the world. Click here in this link to access the channel. We thank you in advance if you become one of our followers and express your reaction to what we publish with an emoji.