Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver II: How we doing?
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Are their 'staff' you've come across New Zealanders (on contract, you'd think) or visiting Americans?
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BenWilson, in reply to
I've never met any staff. They don't have an office that you could do that in. They have a place where they sign people up, manned by people who are almost always clearly not from NZ (by their accents), and who never last long. These people are meant to handle day-to-day parts of the operation too, which is extremely inefficient, since the location of the office is somewhere that it is nearly impossible to park a vehicle, and you have to take a number to see them at all, and often wait while they sign drivers up, a lengthy process. That's all there is.
Oh and there's the security guard, a recent addition. He opens the door for you. Or not, presumably, sometimes. Also deals with the drivers who come in to deal with some operational matter and get stonewalled, become angry, and raise their voices.
Invitations to meet with them, given directly by hand by association members who have been hand picked for special meetings have met no responses. There is no phone number to call, nor any email address to write to. They're basically deliberately unreachable. It's not even clear whether there is any NZ based infrastructure of any note at all. They could actually close down their offices, move everyone overseas, and still operate as efficiently. Probably more efficiently, since the signup center is really a sham front. I think that might even be their game plan.
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And you keep on associating yourself with them, My assocition ended with them when they wanted and even threatened me if do as they wanted (in the way of fines and deactivations). I absoulely refused to operate outside NZ law on there bealf. Its a pity drivers in general just only think of the bottom line and not the future of the industry that supports them and are so happy to be puppets in Uber's game.
Mind you the government is about to tighten up on there operation, especially the idendification of the NZ management of Uber. -
Maybe NZIS should visit and check on these people's immigration status then?
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BenWilson, in reply to
And you keep on associating yourself with them
I’m associating with the drivers. Our association is most certainly not for Uber’s benefit, unless they change their ways. It’s purpose is to lay bare, from within, what the true story of working for Uber is. That can’t really be done from the outside, by competitors. While Uber is still able to operate, it is growing a base of isolated weakened workers set against each other and the entire taxi industry as well. As they gain cohesion, they gain strength, against Uber, and whatever comes after Uber, if Uber doesn’t change and is run out of town.
I’m certainly not working on behalf of the taxi industry itself. Our interests may be temporarily aligned, though, at least with the drivers.
Sure, I could walk away, and leave it to the incredibly ineffective protests that I’ve seen from various disconnected taxi groups, who don’t have the full picture, or any plan, don’t work together, and are generally seen by the public as just protecting their patch. It would be in my financial advantage to walk away. That is precisely what Uber counts on, that people walk away in disgust before they ever get organized enough to do jack about it. Their machine is designed to leverage off that, rather than be deterred by it. Staff churn is not a downside to their business, it’s part of their strategy.
So I’m not going to make any apologies for doing this. And questions about what I personally get out of it are simply answered with “nothing except that I think it’s the right thing to do”. Followed by “and when did that start being an incomprehensible motivation in this country?”.
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You are mostly right and whay you say is the same as us. 20 years ago I said to my fellow drivers at the time you just watch this load of drivers from a certain part of the world stuff the industry up big time, 10 years later they had control of the industry and until Uber came along all they could do was to fight with each other instead of working together for the better meant of the industry. This made the industry so easy to pick off, now most of these drivers are working both sides of the fence and earning less than ever.
There is a sprinking of good motivated drivers in the industry but not enough to be of any use, you would be experiencing the same thing. I have drivers coming to me just about crying they cannot look after there families, its the drivers whom have fucked up there own industry with the help of greedy organisations like Uber whom tap into it.
I don't know the answer anymore but like you I keep trying. -
I have just heard a really strange interview with Simon Bridges on TV this morning, the subject was on Aucklands transport problems. Bridges basicly said the new passenger transport regulations will help Uber acheive there goals in helping to reduce transport problems.
My imediate thought was, is the government going to allow Uber to misclassifly there operation from hire and reward to facilitated shareride on cost recovery only, these are only the two options available in the bill. The introduced bill states the cost recovery km rate is going to be set by the goverment under the act so is this rate going to be inflated or actual rate already set by the IRD at 0.72c per km. Talk about double speak. -
BenWilson, in reply to
I can't see anything good in the bill for Uber at all. It does, at least, give a legal framework for the service that Uber provides. That framework, however, specifically eliminates their ability to operate from offshore. They have to have a local license and that can be taken away.
From what I understand of the review process that led to this Bill, Uber has talked up working with the government, but actually done bugger all. Their submission was a joke, looked like maybe a couple of days work by a few people, compared to the Taxi Federation's lengthy professional document looking at all aspects. I find it hard to believe that NZTA will work off Uber's one, which essentially proposed that they should be allowed to do what they subsequently did in Christchurch, and then "rolled out" to the rest of the country.
They're keeping a positive spin on legislative changes that are spelling the death of Uber in this country, unless they change quick smart.
As for improvements to Auckland's transport issues, the only possible thing he can be talking about is uberPool. Which is not in NZ, and has no barriers to being here beyond the fact that it's not viable and everyone hates it all around the world, and Uber already operates completely illegally for a big percentage of its drivers. Beyond that, it's all good.
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Hi Ben, I actually personaly agree with what you are saying and I do accept the general layout of the bill but with what Bridges was saying in The Nation interview I am thinking something else is up between him and Uber.
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BenWilson, in reply to
with what Bridges was saying in The Nation interview I am thinking something else is up between him and Uber.
Well he better get on with that fast, because Parliament is how we change laws in this country, not secret deals! If this gets to Parliament without any Uber clauses in it, they're screwed. So far, I'm not seeing it.
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goforit, in reply to
I just taken another look at that interveiw and now think that Bridges must be very deluded as he appears to thinks Uber is a car pooling service providing a cost recovery service. He must think that Uber and its drivers work out of the goodness of their hearts not for profit and reward, or maybe its his way of turning a blind eye for his own gain.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Yup, I've never got the impression that he actually knows how it works at all, nor what the law is. I think this process is just moving around him. Maybe he's playing a deeper game. Who can say, really? Who cares, even? The bill contains the important seeds of a saner approach to app driving, whether the Minister has his head screwed on or just plays golf with Uber all day.
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Sacha, in reply to
with what Bridges was saying in The Nation interview I am thinking something else is up between him and Uber
same
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Sacha, in reply to
just plays golf with Uber all day
sounds like his prominent colleague.
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told you something was afoot with Uber and Bridges. Uber has gone into carpooling in NZ. I think this is an attempt to get arounf the licensing laws except of course where its come undone in light of Uber's policy of non compliance to licensing the charge out rate under the new proposed regs can only be 0.72c per km divided by the number of passengers including the driver.
Now who in the hell is going drive there car around just to recover the costs only. -
I suspect that's why the drafters put the bit in about a ride-sharing facilitator being required to keep records of everything. Maybe people will patronise such a service for longer trips, e.g. Wellington to Auckland?
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goforit, in reply to
That is the reason for the facilitator to be licenced and to keep distance run and payments to driver records. There is zero commerical benefit in carpooling unless the record requirements are ignored. We all know Uber likes to ignore regulations, Uber's track record tells it all.
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Sacha, in reply to
Uber has gone into carpooling in NZ
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Need that P endorsement? No worries. Dodgy taxi driver training institute unmasked.
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goforit, in reply to
Now don't we all get the feeling this bill introduced into Parliament to amend the Transport Act by Bridges is turning out to be a farce.
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And dodgy people within the industry certainly don't help the cause. Hope the full weight of the law falls on that crowd.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Now who in the hell is going drive there car around just to recover the costs only.
People who are genuinely carpooling, I guess. I can't see an issue with this service. This one is a good thing. It's not even against the law. I don't think it actually was before either.
It's basically not the same market as Uber driving, as it currently is in NZ. They seem to be using Uber drivers, but I presume that is just as a pilot.
I'm pretty sure they've had this feature in place for several months. It didn't work very well, IIRC, but it's something. Drivers could use it to get home from shifts.
But there's no reason that people who aren't the current kind of Uber driver shouldn't be able to do this. We'll see how popular it is. It might be a good thing.
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I don't quite follow how the guy in the article fits into the cost recovery model, though. Presumably he was actually getting paid for the rides at the normal rate - I'm not aware of any deal that Uber offers the trip at a carpool rate yet. Otherwise the downsides of carpooling for the non-drivers could be expected.
So he was getting regular Uber rides from people during rush hour who inexplicably took a full price Uber at the time when it surges the hardest, and goes the slowest, when it's the most difficult to get to passengers. You could fully expect to have to go backwards away from the city to pick up passengers.
Also he presumably has to sit there accepting trips that aren't to his destination in the morning, otherwise his rating will go through the floor and he'll get cut off. Also, if the passenger actually doesn't want to go to his destination, that's too bad. They changed their mind and want to go to the bus station - that's too bad for him. They didn't like his banter, downrated!
Also, there's no way someone paid the full compliance costs just to do commuter cost sharing on the regular Uber platform. So he probably doesn't realize that if he Ubers in the evening he's also probably breaking the driving work time laws. But one would need to keep a log book to even realize that.
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First there was Uber Cab, then Uber private hire, then Uber rideshare, now Uber pool share. Just change the name so the operation appears to fit the law.
Uber's current 2000 drivers car pool in the morning at shared cost recovery rates only, then in the late afternoon. What do the non P endosed drivers do between those times and in the evening? -
If somebody wants to take a hitcher between AKL and WLG, then a cost recovery price would be: 642km * .72c / 2 = $231 - which is clearly too much to charge, it'd be cheaper to fly. If they charged $50, then if they were doing the trip anyway (especially if it's for work) then that's $50 - or $150 for three riders.
On that basis I'd say an intercity car pooling service would be viable?
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