Fed-up Uber and Lyft drivers banded together for a day of protests in New York on Monday, striking and speaking out after an Uber lawsuit halted city-ordered pay raises.
In the morning, hundreds of drivers joined an auto caravan across the Brooklyn Bridge into lower Manhattan, carrying messages on their vehicles, including, “UBER PAY UP.”
The caravan, which led to a demonstration at Foley Square, was followed hours later by a protest at Uber’s offices blocks away in the Financial District.
At Foley Square, drivers delivered speeches decrying the treatment they have received from Uber.
“We’re not hanging our hands out and telling them ‘give us free money’ — this is our hard-earned money,” bellowed Arifa Tirmizi, 38, a mother of seven children who has driven an Uber for six years.
The caravan included more than 500 drivers, according to the Independent Drivers Guild, which formed in 2016 and represents more than 80,000 New York City ride-hail app drivers.
Drivers say they are being pummeled by inflation, and that they need a commensurate raise from Uber and Lyft.
Striking workers did not appear to have a major effect on ride prices on the apps. About 11 a.m., as the demonstrations were well underway, a solo ride from Wall Street to Times Square cost about $33 on Lyft and about $45 on Uber.
But vocal drivers also took their message to Uber’s corporate doorstep.
Outside the company’s offices on Greenwich St., across from the World Trade Center site, about 30 protesters chanted, “Shame on Uber,” and, “Union power, driver power.” They carried signs comparing Uber to the grinch.
One demonstrator, Ibrahima Gory, 55, said the drivers were trying to make sure that the company heard its workers’ voices.
“We make them what they are,” Gory, who started driving for Uber in 2014, said after the protest. “Without drivers, there would be no Uber.”
The wage hikes would have lifted per-ride pay by about 10% beginning Monday. But Uber sued the city over the raises, and Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron agreed last week to block the hikes at least until a hearing in January.
The city appealed to lift the judge’s order, but was denied on Friday.
Uber claimed in its suit that the raises could tarnish the app’s reputation, burden riders during the holidays and depress demand, hurting drivers. It also said the city Taxi & Limousine Commission, which ordered the hikes, used flawed inflation figures in determining the new rates.
“Drivers do critical work and deserve to be paid fairly, but rates should be calculated in a way that is transparent, consistent and predictable,” Freddi Goldstein, an Uber spokeswoman, said in a statement.
Lyft, which is not a party to the suit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The taxi commission said it supported the drivers’ demonstrations.
“The city’s for-hire drivers have every right to protest Uber’s attempt to deny them the inflation and cost-of-living pay adjustment that they are rightfully due,” David Do, the commission’s chairman, said in a statement. “TLC is actively protesting this too, in court.”
The protests caught the eye of local politicians. On Friday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Bronx-Queens Democratic firebrand, urged New Yorkers to boycott Uber. “Do NOT use Uber this Monday,” she tweeted.
And on Monday, City Councilman Shekar Krishnan and state Sen. Jessica Ramos, two Queens Democrats, joined the protest outside Uber’s offices.
Krishnan said he found Uber’s lawsuit “shocking and offensive.” Ramos described the company as one of the worst employers in the state. In remarks at the rally, she urged “every New Yorker” to boycott Uber.
“There was a public process to arrive at these numbers — a public process that must be respected,” she said of the raises. “We are going to stand behind these drivers.”
Aziz Bah, 48, the organizing director of the Independent Drivers Guild and an Uber driver for nearly a decade, said he was pleased by the scale of the protests.
“Hundreds of drivers came out in full force to demand their raise,” Bah said in an interview. “Drivers are pushing back. Drivers are not just going to sit back and take it.”
“We want the judge who is going to decide that case to really hear the voices of drivers,” he said. “They’re not asking for a handout. They’re doing honest work. They are demanding to be paid fairly.”
With Luiz Ribeiro
