It might be harder to catch an Uber or Lyft drive on Wednesday. Drivers of both ride-hailing companies are planning to strike in major cities to demand better wages and working conditions ahead of Uber’s initial public offering.
“Wages should be a lot higher,” Tina Belanger, an Uber driver from Springfield who was driving in Northampton Tuesday, told the Gazette.
While the strikes will vary from city to city — in Los Angeles and San Diego, drivers will stage a 24-hour-long strike, and in New York class C drivers will strike for two hours during morning rush hour, while Boston drivers will strike from noon to 3 p.m. — the goal is to end what drivers say are unfair driver deactivations, to earn livable income and to guarantee 80 to 85 percent of the fare to the driver, according to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
According to its amended prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April, Uber set a price range of $44 to $50 a share with a goal of raising $91 billion for the San Francisco-based company in its initial public offering Thursday.
Belanger said she is unsure of whether or not she will participate in the strike. She is graduating from Elms College in the coming weeks, and she said Uber is her main source of income.
“I feel like we should be paid more, especially on long-distance rides,” Belanger said. As a full-time student, she drives around five to eight hours a day a few times a week, typically bringing in $300 a week. When she’s not taking classes, she said she’ll work 60 to 70 hours a week and earn $700 to $1,000 a week.
In the company’s SEC filing, Uber said its revenue last year rose 42 percent to reach $11.3 billion for a $1 billion profit. Its operating losses last year totaled $1.8 billion.
With her upcoming graduation this month and vacation, Belanger does not think she will ultimately turn the app off from accepting drivers. “It’s tough,” she said.
Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the NYTWA, said in a press release that Uber is “set to make billions, all while drivers are left in poverty and go bankrupt.”
Uber said in its SEC filings the company had 3.9 million contracted drivers in 2018, with 74 percent of trips taking place outside of the United States in that year.
Luis Fieldman can be reached at lfieldman@gazettenet.com.