NYC proposes pay hike for Uber and Lyft drivers that would curb lockouts

The Taxi and Limousine Commission projected changes to its minimum-pay look that it says volition boost operator wage — and support Uber and Lyft from locking drivers retired to support wage low.

TLC Commissioner David Do came retired swinging astatine a virtual meeting of the bureau Wednesday, calling the rideshare companies’ signifier of freezing drivers retired of the app “harmful, unnecessary and unacceptable.”

“We saw the [Uber and Lyft] locking retired drivers successful the mediate of their shifts with nary thought erstwhile they would beryllium allowed to enactment again,” helium said. “We saw reports of drivers being told to thrust to busier areas — adjacent areas wherever surge pricing was happening — lone to inactive beryllium denied entree [to the app].

“Imagine being told to travel to work, past lone being told that, ‘You cant work, but we won’t adjacent wage you for showing up,'” helium added.

Commissioner and chairperson of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission David Do attends a property league astatine the Uber offices extracurricular of the Falchi Building connected June 26, 2024, successful Long Island City, N.Y. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Uber and Lyft came nether occurrence past year for locking drivers retired of their apps successful an effort to power their alleged “utilization rate” — the percent of the clip that a operator is logged onto the app and carrying a paying rider alternatively of logged successful without a fare.

Under the TLC’s minimum-pay rules, drivers are presently owed much wage from the rideshare apps if the industry-wide utilization complaint drops beneath 53% — a fig some Uber and Lyft sought to power by keeping drivers from logging connected to the app successful the archetypal place, often for hours astatine a time.

During Wednesday’s hearing, TLC officials said they would beryllium throwing retired the utilization information from aft May 2024, considering it “manipulated” by the app lockouts.

In response, the TLC said it’s projected regularisation changes would necessitate apps to notify drivers of immoderate lockouts 72 hours successful advance, and that immoderate lockouts would beryllium prohibited wrong 16 hours of a operator logging connected to the app.

The TLC’s minimum wage formula assesses wage owed to drivers for some hours worked and miles traveled.

The projected update includes an 87-cent per-mile rate, 10.4% higher than the existent 79-cent rate. It besides proposes adding a abstracted utilization-rate calculation to the distance-traveled formula, requiring further wage should region with a rider autumn beneath 68.5% of the region an Uber oregon Lyft operator travels.

In all, said Russell Glynn, TLC’s manager of argumentation research, a operator would spot a astir 6% wage summation successful a illustration 7.5-mile, 30-minute trip.

The caller rules would besides let the TLC to suggest utilization-rate changes whenever it felt travel information supported it — alternatively than erstwhile a year, arsenic allowed nether the existent rules.

The caller rules volition request to beryllium voted connected by the TLC commissioners earlier they spell into effect, and whitethorn yet beryllium changed earlier they’re brought to a vote. Any wage summation arsenic a effect of the rules is abstracted from the expected yearly ostentation accommodation scheduled for March, successful which drivers are expected to get a 3.92% raise.

Representatives from Lyft and Uber expressed their absorption to the program Wednesday.

“However well-intentioned, the projected rules reenforce a flawed attack to operator wage that pressures rideshare companies to usage lockouts to support utilization rate,” Jerry Golden, main argumentation serviceman astatine Lyft, told the commission.

If the caller rules went into effect, Golden said, Lyft would “have to region the equivalent of implicit 1,200 full-time drivers to support 2024 utilization rates.”

Josh Gold, a spokesperson for rideshare elephantine Uber, said New York City drivers were already good paid.

Gold called TLC’s connection to marque utilization-rate changes passim the twelvemonth “arbitrary and capricious,” and said the agency’s complaint look was based connected “miscalculations.”

“If [it’s] not corrected,” the Uber spokesperson said, “the courts volition measurement in.”