Dozens of Uber and Lyft drivers from around the region boycotted both companies today by turning off their apps in Alexandria.
The boycott was part of an international May Day effort calling on Uber and Lyft to be more transparent in regard to fees, fares, and more. Over four hours today, the drivers gathered at the New Virginia Majority office (3801 Mt Vernon Ave) and made speeches, ate lunch, held a poetry reading and talked to each other.
Uber driver Nupur Chowdhury is an organizer with DMV Drivers Alliance, and said drivers are promised good wages, but that unexpected fees prompt drivers to stay on the road for up to 12 hours. That’s the cap that the rideshare companies have set for drivers.
“A lot of us were promised 75%-80 % of the profit from our fares when we started driving,” Chowdhury said. “Over time, there have been more and more fees, and now we have to work twice as hard to make a livable wage.”
Hortense Balla has been driving with Uber for a year.
“It’s kind of a sharecropping experience,” Balla said. “Basically, you work for a third of everything you earn. The absurdity of this is that I spend money on the fuel, on insurance, and the app doesn’t even work that well. We have huge problems with GPS.”
Otherwise, Balla said he gets satisfaction from helping customers.
“I can tell you, you feel good doing that work when you are picking up nurses and security guards at 3 a.m. that don’t have any other option how to get home,” he said. “But this is a matter of public safety on the roads, and drivers should be stressed out and made to work to their limits so that they can get something from that work.”
During the poetry reading, Chowdhury read the following poem:
United Everyday
Does anyone hear?
The cry of the worker.
Does anyone hear?
The pain of not getting proper pay.The struggling workers tears flow like a river.
The rich people have stolen and continue to steal the worker’s share,
and they are building mountains of money,
and the workers bleed climbing them.How much longer will the workers endure?
Hey friends,
like a flock of birds,
move together,
gather strongly,
create a strong circle
awake and scream loudly, scream loudly.Gather and burst into a protest –
like that May Day of 1886
when workers risked their lives
protesting for an eight-hour work day.
And today! Why do we have to work more than eight hours?The time has come to gather,
to sit firmly
to form a circle tight as ropes
Say in unison,
Say together,
Be united, be united.
No other force
can shake us!
Be united, be united!
