What If Uber Were a Unionized, Worker-Owned Co-Op? These Denver Cabbies Are Making It Happen

[Omaha Steve]

Workers at app-driven companies like Uber don’t have the rights of full employees. But with the help of traditional unions, some are banding together into worker-owned cooperatives.



Drivers gather to sign up as affiliate members of the CWA on March 14. Photo by Erin McCarley.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/uber-unionized-worker-owned-co-op-denver-cabbies

Mary Hansen posted Apr 10, 2015
Wolde Gebremariam is one of more than 160,000 people nationwide who drive their own cars for Uber. Based in Denver, Gebremariam, age 28, drives his Chevy SUV for the company and occasionally works as a private limo driver.

Uber built its $40 billion business around a mobile-based application that connects drivers with riders. Hailed by some for shaking up a stagnant taxi industry, others criticize the company for how it treats drivers, who pay for their own cars, gas, and maintenance. It’s also been criticized for dictating rates and for deactivating drivers’ accounts, essentially firing them, without warning.

The ride-hailing app company may be innovative from the perspective of its customers—and its owners—but for the driver the experience is very similar to that of a traditional taxi driver, as Gebremariam can attest.

After he moved to Denver from Ethiopia in 2006, he worked minimum-wage jobs at the baggage claim in the Denver International Airport, and then at a nursing home. Though he enjoyed working with seniors, he wanted to go back to school and study pharmacy. The flexibility of driving a cab seemed like the right way to go. “I could work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday driving,” he says. “Then, I [could] go to school full time.”

FULL story at link.

[KamaAina]

1. Newark is doing it, too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141044940

[appalachiablue]

2. Excellent-