Your Uber Driver is Being Paid in Coupons
Uber drivers–who don’t receive a minimum wage, health insurance, job security, or even concern for their personal safety–can at least now save a few dollars on Dockers, thanks to Uber’s insulting new deal with Shop Your Way, the loyalty points program of Sears and Kmart.
The partnership offers up to $425 in discount shopping points for Shop Your Way Members who sign up as new “driver-partners.” Of course, Uber doesn’t make it easy to earn the points. Drivers have to complete 100 trips within 45 days to earn the full $425. If you’re able to complete the 100 trips within 42 hours of work, congratulations! You’ve earned the equivalent of California’s minimum wage (in Kenmore appliances). Ha ha, not really! You have to subtract an extra 9% for the sales tax on your new toaster oven and 15% for the extra income tax you’re subject to for being an independent contractor. So if you want to earn the equivalent of 42 hours of minimum wage labor, you have to work for 52 hours.
The program allows Uber the illusion of offering benefits to its workers without the inconvenience of actually paying them any extra. CEO Travis Kalanick, while bathing deep within his Scrooge McDuckish pile of gold, refuses to toss his essential employees even the few coins stuck to the inside of his butt cheeks. Instead of increasing his drivers wages to a legal amount, or even giving them the extra measly $425 in cash, he’s recruited Sears to pay them for him. “$425 over 45 days is almost $10 a day,” he’s telling his workers, “and, sorry, you’re just not worth that. But here, go get yourself some towels at a store whose most recognizable characteristic is being the place where people shop when they can’t afford to shop somewhere else.” (Full disclosure: I am a Shop Your Way member and use the points all the time to buy clothes at Sears, because I can’t afford to shop somewhere else.)
The estimated net worth of Uber sits somewhere between $28 billion and $62 billon. Even the low end of that range makes it more valuable than American powerhouses like Allstate, United Airlines, John Deere, Archer Daniels Midland, and other stalwart corporations with business plans that don’t require usurping the fundamental labor structure of a functioning capitalist economy. What do those companies all have in common, other than over 80 years of continuous operation? They don’t need to pay their employees with coupons for flip-flops. Instead of cutting deals with retailers as ersatz pay increases, those four corporations manage to turn a profit while putting money towards wages, benefits, vacation and sick pay and, oh yeah, legally required social security tax payments.
But the most telling aspect of the Uber/Shop Your Way deal, the part that clearly illustrates how Uber not only willingly devalues its employees but also must devalue its employees, is that the program is open only to new drivers. As I’ve explained before, Uber requires a constant influx of new workers because its continued success relies on an ever increasing number of cars and a corresponding ever decreasing per-driver income. Uber needs more drivers earning less, and the Shop Your Way partnership inches them closer to that goal by picking the pockets of its existing, loyal workers.
If you’re an Uber driver, your employer doesn’t care about you, and you should be angry. If you’re an Uber customer, Uber doesn’t care about you either, and you should find another way to travel.
