Note: This article was written based on an article in the NYP 10/13/16
Uber drivers get benefits
NYS Dept. of Labor granted Uber drivers “employee status,” as opposed to “independent contractor” status. This came as a result from the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance. Now Uber owners have to contribute to their drivers’ benefits, such as worker’s compensation and unemployment insurance.
Yellow cab drivers get screwed
Meanwhile New York Yellow cab drivers get nothing. They get no such benefits. They get screwed.
Many Yellow cab drivers state that Uber has taken away as much as 40% of their business, but the Yellow cab drivers’ expenses – especially the cost of renting a cab (up to $1200 per week for a 24 hour cab) remains the same. Also Yellow cab drivers have to charge customers 80 cents a ride that goes to the city. Uber drivers don’t.
Plus Uber drivers don’t have to have a Medallion. These Medallions used to cost around $1 million apiece, a cost that has to be paid by the drivers and the customers. Now because of Uber, the value of these Medallions have gone down to $500,000, costing many owners a cool one-half million for each cab.
Customers get overcharged
Then, Uber charges customers around the same rates as Yellow cabs, even though they don’t have the $500,000 overhead.
The Uber owners created a computer program, they marketed it, and they successfully implemented it. A few guys became billionaires and the customers and the Yellow cab drivers and owners got the short end of the stick.
Welcome to free-enterprise.
Eddie’s economic philosophy
It is Eddie’s economic philosophy that free enterprise is great. It’s a miracle. Just let people be free to buy, sell, and build businesses – with few restrictions as possible — and zoom, the economy grows leaps and bounds. This is basically the Libertarian philosophy.
However the resulting economy has gross injustices (like with the Yellow cab drivers and owners) and gross dysfunctions (like pollution, depletion of natural resources, 50% youth unemployment in minority communities, and the lowering of the quality of life for the average person).
Thus the government – if it were enlightened and not contaminated with corruption (that is, politicians filling their pockets with money) – should be a referee, an umpire, over the free enterprise system. They could modify the behavior of ambitious businessmen and unaware consumers. We could have capitalism with a heart. Capitalism with reason.
The government could help create a good quality of life for all groups of citizens in the long run.
Eddie,
You seem to be quite taken by the hype of Belasio and the cab drivers. Spare me the crap about the cab drivers and owners getting the short end of the stick. For way too long, the medallion owners and cab drivers have been taking advantage of a “monopoly” and charging outrageous prices. What companies like Lyft, Uber & Juno have done have brought competition to the market place and as such offered customers like myself options. Here are a few things that these tech companies have done to offer tremendous value to us customers:
a) by entering the market, they have forces cab companies themselves to innovate. A perfect example is that tech companies offer customers the ability to pay not just with credit card but also offer customers to split pay. Now, cab companies have started to do the same thing. They would never have done it if it were not for the innovation initiated by the tech cab companies.
b) You have to admit cabbies have had a rapport of providing lousy customer service. Sitting in the back seemed and still seems like you are in a prison cell. Having ridden lyft the other day, I must admit the car was air freshened, the driver polite and even offered me a free bottle of water. When was the last time you ever saw that happen in a yellow cab?
c) Prior to the advent of lyft I would probably not have gone to a bunch of places. Cab prices were simply too high and the subway too inconvenient. With the promotions and specials tech cab companies offer, people like me can afford to have “our own driver” at a reasonable price. By the way, the reason why prices have gone up in Manhattan has nothing to do with the tech companies setting the prices. It has everything to do with unfair rigged regulation on behalf of the yellow cabs. Simply by stepping foot in another state, you will notice a hugh discrepancy in pricing, tech cabs being much more affordable. My recent visit to San Francisco CA enabled me to travel anywhere in the city (one way) for $5. This was also the case in Colorado and Michigan.
I firmly believe that free enterprise and the market should always determine the price of services / goods offered. Not the elite politicians like Belasio or the medallion owners. The let the company that offers the most in value win!
I generally thought Uber was an imbecilic thought, we as of now have that industry, and it’s been around for a considerable length of time with no colossal flaws…too many individuals out there today attempting to re-develop the wheel, when they ought to attempt to make the NEXT thing.
It truly doesn’t make a difference what the yellow taxi industry does now. I am an entrepreneur of color, ordinarily I have hailed yellow cabs that cruise me by, once before the Met (wearing a suit). I don’t get that with Uber, they will take me to the Bronx where I live.
The Uber plan of action and NYC Taxi plan of action are altogether different. The main thing they have in like manner is they both have an “on-request nonspecific taxi (uberx) dispatch application.
This is called out of line rivalry .I am shocked what amount of cash Uber has spent to purchase these folks from legislators to Wall road folks? That is the reason they are losing over a billion dollars a year.