Comments by "B Bodziak" (@B_Bodziak) on "Massachusetts sues Uber, Lyft to classify drivers as employees" video.
-
10
-
For years they used investment dollars to subsidize driver pay and even subsidize what customers pay for rides. In Uber's latest SEC filing, they come right out and say that they have raised customer rates (55%) while simultaneously lowering the payments to drivers significantly. People have been driving for these companies for years and have invested themselves by buying new, expensive cars/SUVs and some have even moved to more lucrative cities. People qualified for 30 year mortgages based upon their 5+ years as drivers. Then, the rug gets pulled out from under them. In no other industry would state and the national legislatures allow companies to slash 67- 78% of its employees' wages while stuffing half a billion dollars in annual salaries into its ceo's pockets. To anyone who says, "Well, you don't have to do it," I ask-- if your company/boss spent 18-24 months slowly reducing your pay by 2% every two weeks or every month without giving you notice, you'd likely complain a bit and when your boss told you to leave if you weren't happy, you'd likely just adjust your budget. Now, let's suppose you're a single parent and you need to keep your job with this boss because he allows you to start work after your kids go to school and let's you finish when schools our and allows you time off to go to their sporting games, plays, twacher-parwnt conferences, etc. You'd be willing to give up that 2% loss continue because you could not work anywhere else and pay childcare and transportation costs.
In no other large industry would the US legislature allow a company to charge consumers substantially more while substantially cutting employee pay if that company or industry was also paying out unexpectedly large dividend to shareholders with their ceo's taking the #2 and #6 sits of the highest paid... And that's without even legislators considering the impact to communities who need these services. Imagine if a natural gas or electric company did this.
I'm just amazed at the stupidity of people who say delivery drivers are independent contractors and they don't have to do these jobs. Well, fine. Those single parents driving can just apply for tax dollars for welfare programs and they can also take tax dollars for unemployment. Why would anyone be a delivery driver and invest in reliable transportation when literally accepting government help brings in more money to the household.... These are the issues that are involved in congressional oversight. It's no different that the federal government providing a portion of someone's retirement pension when the corporation goes BK. This is just another form of taking dollars from the middle class in the form of taxes and redistributing those tax dollars to the wealthy in the form of tax subsidies to wealthy corporations. For example, Elon Musk's company receives $500 million in tax subsidies (from tax payers) to produce a rocket. Then, his company turns around and sells that rocket back the US govt who uses even more US taxpayer money to buy it. That is simply the US govt redistributing wealth from the average, middle class to the wealthy.
Almost seems like a bait n switch
3
-
2
-
1