It’s been one of the lighter dramas of the holiday season. Unable to find a driver per app, family members are forced to look for a taxi in the middle of the street or take rides from friends. This entirely new reality for a society that has become accustomed to always having a driver available has been treated as another unusual element of the pandemic. The absence of vehicles on the platforms would be, according to the main companies in the sector, a transitory situation due to a combination of factors that unbalanced the market, such as the increase in passengers and the rise in gasoline prices.
The global character of the crisis suggests that the reasons go deeper. Claiming the job is financially unfeasible, drivers are accepting a fifth of the trips offered by the app in countries like the UK. Trivial trips from Los Angeles, Mumbai and Paris airports can cost the price of a plane ticket. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is being forced to abandon the corporation’s mantras, seeking dialogue with municipal authorities, with whom the company has always opted for a strong relationship in the past, and even forming partnerships with New York’s yellow taxis, symbols of the ” old world” that she had promised to turn into a relic of another time.
What explains this spontaneous and global movement initiated by the drivers themselves, which may be remembered in the future as the first great strike of the digital economy? In the last decade, Uber has transformed the transport market, creating an illusion of modernity for the informal worker, elevated by the company to the innovative and elegant category of digital entrepreneur. The political environment was particularly favorable to this cultural revolution. In 2016, the Temer government linked labor reform to opportunities for “uberization” while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made Uber the main partner of Start Up India, one of the flagship programs of his new government.
But the pandemic has exposed the harsh reality of digital servitude: Forcibly transformed into essential workers, motorists are among the main economic and health victims of the pandemic around the world. The trauma brought them closer to traditional mechanisms of social contestation. In India, an organization with millions of drivers forced the Modi government to vote on a social assistance package that includes pension and access to health services. In September, a court in the Netherlands, where Uber has its global headquarters, ruled that company drivers must be recognized as company employees, following similar decisions in California and London courts. Despite the difficulties, Uber announced its first operating profit in November 2021. But its business model, based on the myth of driver-entrepreneurs, may not survive the pandemic.
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