Transit workers and unions can collaborate with riders to improve conditions for everyone.
The rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s and 1980s had calamitous impacts on labour: wages stagnated, union density and militancy plummeted, and precarity returned with outsourcing and offshoring. While official unemployment numbers remain low (the U.S. hit a fifty-year low of 3.5 percent in late 2019), a vast majority of job creation is “alternative work arrangements” like traditional temp or contract work, along with new “gig economy” jobs like TaskRabbit and DoorDash.1 One of every ten workers in Toronto now participates in the gig economy for some of their income.2
No sector is expected to be hit as hard by advanced technologies as transportation. Trucking and taxis have been identified by media outlets as losing millions of jobs due to automation, though that claim has been repeatedly challenged by researchers.3 Next-generation automobility is about many things, but it remains above all about questions of labour: who performs it, how much they’re compensated, their legal categorization, and whether those jobs will even exist in the future.
The websites of ride-hailing companies are chock full of endorsements of the benefits of driving for them. Uber brags of three reasons why drivers will love the work: the ability to set your own schedule, the possibility to make more money with longer distances and surge pricing, and the opportunity to meet new people (from “long-time residents to first-time tourists, families, small business owners, and more”).4 Lyft includes a similar list of incentives, including keeping all the tips, making more money during peak hours, and being a part of the “Lyft community” of riders and drivers.5 Testimonies from drivers are quoted prominently on Lyft’s website.
The dream as hawked by such companies sees drivers having control over their own lives: being your own boss without having to worry about the logistics of owning a small business, and doing work that seems to help regular people.6 Another promotional page for Uber boasts of drivers’ ability to move to different places without worrying about where they’re going to find work.7
There’s clearly a strong attraction to at least try out work with ride-hailing companies. Around the world, an estimated two to four million people drive for Uber alone, providing an incredible 15 million rides each day.8 Lyft reports that it uses almost 1.5 million drivers, who have earned over $500 million in tips to date.9 (Many drivers pull shifts for both Uber and Lyft, although the design of the Uber Partner app discourages users from running both apps at once.)10 In a world of hard-to-find jobs and ungrateful bosses, the appeal of driving for Uber or Lyft isn’t hard to grasp, particularly if you already own a car that’s rarely in use.
But the allure of electric, ride-hailing, and autonomous vehicles to Silicon Valley investors isn’t merely to reinvent the taxi with a nifty app and evade regulations imposed on taxis such as limits on the number of vehicles on the road. Rather, financial backers of companies like Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Tesla are banking on eventually making drivers obsolete—and in the meantime, using the threat of autonomy to discipline the labour force to accept ever-lower compensation and working conditions, and ensuring that politicians don’t ruin their future attempts at monopolization by properly funding public transit.
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick explained the situation this way: “The reason Uber could be expensive is because you’re not just paying for the car—you’re paying for the other dude in the car. When there’s no other dude in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a vehicle.”11
Ride-hailing companies have fought tooth and nail to ensure that their drivers continue to be considered independent contractors rather than employees. That means almost all costs are downloaded onto the driver—and minimum wage and overtime laws don’t apply. The driver covers everything from the price of owning or leasing the vehicle to fuel, maintenance, insurance, and fees. Uber and Lyft say that they only take 25 percent of the fare. But the additional booking fee can increase the cut to upwards of 42 percent, with lower fares resulting in higher effective commissions.12 Larry Hanley of the ATU equated the situation to “Walmart on wheels,” creating artificial downward pressure on the entire sector. “It’s an ugly thing,” he told me. “It’s yet another arm of economically well-endowed capitalists to bring pain to the people at the bottom.”
Many estimations have been made of how much Uber and Lyft drivers actually make. Uber claimed in 2014 that drivers earned $74,200 a year in San Francisco and $90,800 a year in New York.13 A 2015 Uber-funded study estimated that its drivers were making over $19 per hour in earnings in the top twenty markets.14 But crucially, none of those estimates included Uber’s commission or vehicle expenses. Multiple rate cuts have left drivers getting even less than when the company first started operating, representing a total collective loss for drivers of billions of dollars.15
A May 2018 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that driver compensation averages $11.77 per hour, after Uber’s fees and vehicle expenses. However, once all other costs were covered, including mandatory Social Security and Medicare tax payments and federal taxes, that figure was knocked down to an average of $9.21 per hour.16 Several other studies agree on an after-cost rate of $10 per hour.17
Driving for a ride-hailing company as a woman, trans, or gender non-conforming person has its own risks. As a popular ride-hailing website described it, “If a rider gets a little creepy and spooks the woman for any reason—she’s in a very vulnerable spot. Her options are quite limited when compared to traditional public-facing jobs.”18 A twenty-four-year-old single mother of two told Bloomberg in late 2018 about her experience driving for Uber: “Every single time, every day that I drive, every night that I drive, there is at least one questionable experience.”19
Several trans drivers for Uber have been kicked off the platform; if a person is transitioning, the app’s Real-Time ID Check that requires a selfie of the driver may not exactly match the photo the company has on file. Janey Webb, an Uber driver in Iowa, was deactivated right before July 4, one of the more profitable days of the year. “A trans person can’t be expected to update their license every three months or so just to avoid being deactivated,” she said.20
Katie Wells of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor conducted a two-year study about the work lives of forty Uber drivers in the Washington, DC, area.21 While some drivers are in a stable financial position and do it for fun or supplemental income, many desperately rely on fares for survival. “Their work lives suck,” Wells told me.
Wells explains that for many drivers, one extra repair or a car crash can mean that they can’t feed their kids and they have to sell things they find in the closet. Yet the rating system discourages drivers from talking about their conditions. Riders rate the quality of service between one and five stars; sustained ratings below 4.6 could resulting in deactivation of a driver’s account.22 “The rating system is this ingenious way to isolate the workers from any kind of relationship building,” Wells says.
“Drivers are vulnerable in terms of how much money they’re going to make and how much they’re going to spend. They’re working long hours, they’re not making much pay. They’re driving sixteen- or eighteen-hour days, seven cups of coffee, really rooting for the public transit system to fail. It’s a precarious work life, and it’s affecting their home life as well.”
—Katie Wells, Kalmanovitz Initiative for
Labor and the Working Poor
To keep their ratings up, Uber drivers are expected to offer more and more items to riders: bottled water, candy, Wi-Fi, a charger—all of which cost the driver out of pocket.23 The rating system requires drivers to be “on” at all times, which is an enormous amount of emotional labour. A 2016 Harvard Business Review feature explained that the process “involves actively reshaping a worker’s inner emotional life to conform to employers’ and customers’ expectations of emotional performance.”24 Further, the lack of predictability about what passengers desire in a ride can provoke anxiety and poor morale in drivers who are trying their best.25
The Uber app has also been the subject of criticism for the way that it “gamifies” the experience, using psychological tricks to incentivize drivers to keep working longer than they otherwise would. The company has “exploited some people’s tendency to set earnings goals,” applying similar behavioural motivations as are found in popular video games and the Netflix autoplay function. Those include constant reminders to the driver of how close they are to meeting a certain earnings goal, as well as “forward dispatching,” in which a new ride is assigned before the current one ends, and experimenting with female-sounding voices to encourage male drivers.26
Drivers can be logged out of the app or sent warning messages for a low acceptance rate, or for accepting a ride and then immediately cancelling (which, if undetected, helps avoid a low acceptance rate).27 Companies have stopped deactivating drivers for a low acceptance rate out of concerns that such a policy could contribute to a court categorizing their contractors as employees. But they do send more ride requests to drivers with higher acceptance ratings, so there’s an incentive to keep rates up.28 Those requests sometimes mean driving a long distance for a pickup, at the driver’s expense.
Drivers for both leading companies are forced into taking UberPool or Lyft Line rides. The shared trips are berated on driver forums as a waste of time, with multiple pickups that can lead to interpersonal conflicts between random (and potentially inebriated) strangers.29 Uber’s S-1 filing ahead of its 2019 initial public offering revealed that it knew its plan to eliminate additional incentives like weekly bonuses for completing extra trips during busy times would further anger drivers.30
Many Lyft drivers who leased vehicles through the company’s Express Drive program have ended up in precarious situations. Some live in the $240-per-week car itself, as they can’t afford apartments and get paid lower rates than Lyft drivers who own their own vehicles.31 Uber relaunched its own vehicle leasing program in mid-2019, collaborating with auto loan company Fair to allow drivers without a car to effectively rent one for $185 per week. All but the most basic maintenance costs are downloaded on the driver—a major concern given that Fair offers used vehicles.32
Because they’re considered independent contractors, drivers aren’t able to force ride-hailing companies to collectively bargain with them. In mid-2019, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board confirmed that Uber’s drivers indeed are to be classified as contractors, not employees.33 Risks to drivers who engage in job actions are extremely high, as Uber has the power to deactivate anyone they suspect of participating. In response to an attempt by Seattle city council to allow ride-hailing drivers to unionize, Uber started notifying drivers via the app of company- produced anti-union podcast episodes.34
Seattle city councillor Kshama Sawant told me that her office was hearing from Uber drivers that the company deactivated their app after they were more open about wanting to unionize. “This big corporation is using intimidation tactics to prevent the workers fighting for their rights,” she says.
Attempts by ride-hailing drivers to organize strikes have faced serious challenges, especially since the app doesn’t allow for drivers to connect to each other and Uber’s driver Facebook page has reportedly deleted critical posts.35 Surge pricing and last-minute promotions can be effective in encouraging drivers to break a strike.36
Another impediment to organizing is that many Uber drivers don’t see themselves as being in the job for the long haul. This reduces the likelihood that they will risk their employment by struggling for better conditions.37 Wells told me that many ride-hailing drivers haven’t previously held jobs with full-time benefits, so the working conditions are not very different than what they’re used to. Constant competition against other drivers for rides encourages them to keep their heads down. “The failures they had to make an income they believed were their own,” Wells says. “They internalized the idea that they couldn’t figure it out or they feel really sorry for other drivers who can’t make it. They know that other people are failing.”
The threat of autonomous vehicles is also used to deter drivers from organizing, the equivalent of the self-checkout for fast food workers.38 Taxi and limo drivers are losing significant market share to Uber and Lyft, so they have to work far more hours to make the same amount of money.39 Ride-hailing companies have also played direct roles in undermining labour actions by taxi drivers.40
Patterns of exploitation and anti-labour practices are found in the offices and factories of the next-generation automobile companies as well. Tesla has been the subject of multiple allegations of racism and unsafe working conditions.41 Ambulances have been called to Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, hundreds of times since 2014 for workers experiencing health problems and injuries.42 The factory reportedly lacks clearly marked safety lines because CEO Elon Musk dislikes the colour yellow—and the warning beeps of forklifts.43 An investigation indicated that Tesla was reporting workplace injuries as “personal medical” cases, so they weren’t counted on company reports. The number of work days per worker missed due to injuries and illness doubled at Tesla’s Fremont factory in 2018, with two-thirds of injuries from cumulative trauma caused by repetitive stress.44
Tesla has also been repeatedly accused of unfair labour practices including illegal surveillance and intimidation to prevent workers organizing to unionize with United Auto Workers, causing the union to file multiple charges with the National Labor Relations Board.45 In May 2018, the union filed a complaint with the agency over a tweet by Musk that implied unionizing would jeopardize worker stock options.46 In September 2019, a judge ruled that Musk and other Tesla executives had violated labour laws by interfering with union organizing, including allowing security guards to harass workers distributing union pamphlets and prohibiting workers from wearing pro-union clothing.47
Tesla workers have said that “anything union or pro-union is shut down really fast” and that “pro-union people are generally fired for made-up reasons.”48 General Motors CEO Mary Barra said that Tesla’s interest in buying one of its closing factories was dropped because Musk didn’t want the company’s unionized workers.49 Tesla has opposed the introduction of a clause in California’s electric vehicle rebate policy about manufacturers having to be “fair and responsible” in treatment of factory workers, as the company thinks it is part of UAW’s plan to unionize its Fremont factory.50
Uber’s offices have also been plagued with allegations of sexual harassment and systemic discrimination.51 An internal investigation into sexual harassment claims conducted by Uber in the wake of major allegations resulted in more than twenty employees being fired.52 In 2017, over 200 claims of sexual harassment or other inappropriate behaviour going back as far as 2012 were investigated by an outside law firm on behalf of the company, but Uber took action on only 58 cases.
In March 2018, Uber agreed to pay $10 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by over 400 female engineers and engineers of colour about discrimination in pay and hiring.53 In July 2018, Uber’s head of human resources Liane Hornsey resigned following an internal investigation into allegations of racial discrimination.54 That same month, it was reported that Barney Harford—Uber’s chief operating officer, hired by new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to “help fix problems” at the company—was the subject of multiple complaints to human resources about incidents considered insensitive toward women and people of colour. Harford left the company a year later.55
Chronic exploitation of workers is at the heart of the so-called electric and ride-hailing revolutions. And autonomous vehicles take concerns about labour to a new level: the entire project is an attempt to eradicate labour. Despite there being no immediate pathway to widespread deployment of the technology, Wells told me that all forty Uber drivers whom they interviewed in their research brought up the looming threat of autonomous vehicles on their own accord, unprompted.
It’s consistent with the narrative of ride-hailing more generally. In 2016, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said: “If we are not tied for first, then the person who is in first, or the entity that’s in first, then rolls out a ridesharing network that is far cheaper or far higher-quality than Uber’s, then Uber is no longer a thing.”56 A report prepared by consulting firm Roland Berger suggested that the erasure of driver costs is the only path to profitability for operators, who would go from a 227 percent loss in non-autonomous business as usual to a 10 percent gain by eliminating the driver and committing autonomous vehicles to both traditional routes and last-mile services.57
Yet resistance by drivers to the precarity of next-generation automobility is growing. In May 2019, just before Uber’s initial public offering and only months after a similar action in San Francisco and Los Angeles, ride-hailing drivers around the world staged strikes and protests. Veena Dubal—professor of law at the University of California Hastings and a former taxi worker organizer—wrote in Slate that while Uber and Lyft didn’t immediately raise driver wages or recognize unions as bargaining units, the strike should be considered a “huge, unprecedented victory for service workers in the on-demand platform economy.”58
California’s sweeping legislation, Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5), may force Uber and Lyft to have its workers classified as employees rather than independent contractors.59 It’s unclear what the future of AB-5 is at this point, but Uber has already responded by claiming that drivers aren’t a core part of their business model and thus aren’t employees.60 Both Uber and Lyft are dedicating $60 million to fund a 2020 state ballot initiative that would keep drivers classified as less than employees through the creation of a new category for ride-hailing drivers.61 Some labour unions have also been in talks with the companies to establish a compromise deal that would keep drivers categorized as independent contractors but with additional benefits.62 Drivers will continue to fight for the right to organize but may be restricted by existing antitrust laws.63
Victories such as the strikes and California’s AB-5 have been achieved thanks to the hard work by organizations like L.A.’s Rideshare Drivers United, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, and Gig Workers Rising.64 But fights against the profiteers of the three revolutions in automobility—whether organizing a union in Tesla’s factory or demanding better pay for Uber and Lyft drivers—are extremely difficult to win. These fights will become increasingly difficult to win as the companies attract more investment and win over more milquetoast unions, and autonomous technologies get closer to commercial deployment. These fights must continue, with solidarity from transit riders and drivers. But to address environmental and economic justice, it’s imperative that progressives struggle for good unionized transportation work on other fronts as well.
The rhetoric of cost savings and labour reduction popularized by the “three revolutions” of automobility has wormed its way into communities and transit agencies across North America, exacerbating years of pre-existing austerity measures. Rather than respond to the threats of ride-hailing and autonomous vehicles with a radical increase in funding for public and active transportation, most governments have opted to pressure transit organizations to fight for their lives with the same or less money—which has pushed some into partnerships with the very ride-hailing companies that are destroying their business model.
Hanley told me: “There are threats to the transit system because they’ve artificially taken the floor out from the wage base and that creates an opportunity for transit agencies who have no conscience to use the lower wages as a way to rid themselves of workers who may have a decent wage. It’s a way for transit agencies to disengage with the employment relationships they have by essentially using Uber and Lyft as third-party contractors.”
This trend is having serious impacts on the opportunity for jobs and their quality. More ride-hailing cars on the road are worsening congestion, a factor that bus drivers have identified as impeding efficiency and increasing potential for altercations with passengers.65 The allure of ride-hailing may also be “siphoning off would-be bus drivers,” leaving the profession of bus driving in danger if it doesn’t undergo a “radical makeover.”66
Madeline Janis of Jobs to Move America told me that the entry of companies like Uber and Lyft also leads public transit agencies to cut costs when it comes to day-to-day operations such as purchasing new equipment and maintaining existing stock. “Rather than best value and the way they do procurement, it’s always cheap,” she says. “Maintenance is delayed and people are laid off and there’s this push to privatize. There’s a defensiveness that public agencies develop as they face the constant attack of everything that has to do with the public sector.”
Automation poses additional threats to the future of transit drivers; it has the potential to wipe out tens of thousands of jobs. In 2016, Columbus, Ohio, won a $50 million grant to implement a “smart city” plan that includes automating transit, prompting the transit union local to hold a press conference at the state capitol opposing self-driving buses.67 Transport Workers Union International president John Samuelsen said at the time that the threat of automation is a “not-so-thinly-veiled attack on the trade union movement.”
Self-driving buses are expected to disproportionately affect Black drivers in the U.S. The president of an Ohio union local said, “It would be devastating in the African American community as predominantly the bus drivers are African American.”68 Public transit investments in the U.S. deliver the greatest job benefits for Black people, including construction, operations, and improving access to other employment opportunities.69 In Philadelphia, for example, nearly 60 percent of the workers at the city’s transit agency are Black.70
Ride-hailing has certainly accelerated the assault on unionized transit workers. But such attacks stem from a history of privatized transportation and austerity politics that predate Uber and Lyft, and trace back to the systemic neglect of public forms of mobility. Rail modes like subways and streetcars are often promoted for their ability to carry more people with fewer drivers. Such modes are viewed as a way to challenge private car culture without adding too much to public expenditure. Expanding bus networks, which require more drivers and tend to have smaller capacity but service lower-income or lower-density areas, is a harder sell.
For example, transportation planner Dan Malouff of BeyondDC has written that one of the advantages of streetcars is reduced operational costs: “Fewer vehicles means more efficient use of fuel and fewer (unionized and pensioned) drivers to pay.”71 Similarly, Jarrett Walker argued in a 2010 post on the Human Transit blog that automation of the Vancouver SkyTrain allowed for high frequencies well into the night, and that requiring a driver would result in service cuts.72
These are accurate statements, technically speaking. But they each contain an unfortunate anti-labour bias that implies that the problem is wages and benefits rather than austerity and chronic underfunding. Subways and light rail are the most efficient modes of transportation—but they can’t be seen as the only modes worth funding. Buses serve as the backbone of systems that connect low-income and lower-density areas. Light rail projects that result in the reduction of bus service are arguably an especially insidious form of cost-cutting.
In Ottawa, transit agency OC Transpo shut down bus lines, downsizing its bus fleet by 170 buses and laying off 345 staff in anticipation of the opening of its $2.1 billion light rail transit line—which was first proposed in 2012, well before ride-hailing was popularized. Almost all of the staff laid off were bus drivers.73 Rather than using existing buses and drivers to connect riders to the new rail line, Ottawa sabotaged the effectiveness of the line by using it as an excuse to administer austerity.
Transit agencies are also not immune to issues of exploitation and racism. In late 2018, the president of the ATU local that represents transit workers in London, Ontario, resigned. The union’s members had voted that he step down after fostering a toxic environment and chronic lack of support around workplace harassment and discrimination.74 Such a situation points to concerning issues within the transit labour movement about protection of abusive management. But it also represents the potential of the kind of workplace democracy that unions offer rank-and-file workers, who can collectively eject leaders who behave contrary to their values. While Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was eventually forced out of the company after a series of catastrophic mistakes, the ability for regular people and workers to fight for their rights and accountability is much greater in publicly owned, operated, and unionized services. In a private corporation, executives are ultimately accountable only to a handful of board members and influential shareholders.
There are many examples of transit unions protecting their members. In 2016, in response to a grievance from ATU Local 113, a provincial arbitrator required Toronto’s TTC to create a social media policy to better protect transit workers from targeted harassment on its social media account.75 Transport Workers Union Local 100 successfully pressured New York’s MTA to remove advertisements for the Museum of Sex from the front of buses in mid-2018, as they had allegedly resulted in increased sexual harassment of female bus drivers.76
Members of ATU Local 689 refused to service three private Metro rail cars that were to be provided to white nationalists travelling to a Unite the Right rally in Washington, DC, in August 2018.77 The union said in a statement: “More than 80 percent of Local 689’s membership is people of color, the very people that the Ku Klux Klan and other white nationalist groups have killed, harassed and violated. The union has declared that it will not play a role in their special accommodation.”
Time after time, transit unions have fought for and often won improvements in wages, benefits, safety, anti-discrimination policies, annual leave, and workplace conditions.78 As a result, compared to Uber and Lyft drivers, transit workers have better pay, more predictable hours, and (quite obviously) don’t have to cover work expenses. Belonging to a union also gives employees the power to take workplace action such as striking if collective bargaining fails to secure a fair deal, something that is inaccessible to non-unionized employees and contractors in the private sector.
Transit operators perform many functions that autonomous vehicles are incapable of. There are countless examples of drivers going above and beyond the regular function of operating the vehicle to aid other people.79
An Edmonton bus driver, Derek Bailey, saw a man slumped over in a bus shelter in −20°F windchill conditions, brought him on board the bus, and called paramedics for help. “Had he been out there for maybe another hour, two at the most, he would have frozen to death,” said Bailey.80 A New York bus driver grabbed a student’s hood as the student was exiting the bus, just as a car sped by that would have hit them.81 Bus drivers have saved a toddler from wandering alone in freezing conditions, driven passengers to safety in a shooting spree despite being wounded themselves, and administered CPR to pedestrians who have collapsed on the side of the road.82 Drivers have rescued a young boy with a disability from oncoming traffic, helped an elderly woman carry her groceries from the bus to her home, and blocked other vehicles to ensure that a goose and goslings got across the road safely.83 These are situations that autonomous vehicles will never be able to replicate.
Transit workers and unions can collaborate with riders to improve conditions for everyone. Bus drivers in Winnipeg went on a two “fare strikes” in 2019 to protest underfunding, workplace safety, and fare hikes.84 Inspired by similar actions in Okayama, Japan, and Sydney, Australia, the fare strikes maintained regular bus service but elected not to inform riders of the requirement to pay.85 Such job actions show a collaborative approach that maintains good relations with passengers and unites drivers’ and passengers’ struggles.
Free transit is widely understood as being in the interest of driver safety and quality of work.86 A survey conducted in 2016 by the Amalgamated Transit Union found that 73.6 percent of assaults are the result of fare disputes, while another 35.1 percent are caused by inadequate service.87 Policing fare collection can be a stressful additional task for bus drivers, who are required to bear the brunt of anger about high fares and unreliable service. It also helps justify the hiring of dozens of transit enforcement officers, using money that could otherwise be used to improve service quality.
In ride-hailing and autonomous vehicle services, users have no control over the price. But transit operators and riders can successfully team up to pressure their local governments to freeze or decrease fares. Hanley told me about organizing between operators and riders: “Frankly, I’m disappointed that we don’t do it more often. We encourage and train our local officers to get out there and organize with the riders. Where they do it, they succeed in improving transit.” A March 2018 issue of In Transit, the ATU’s member publication, highlighted several rider groups across North America that the union worked with. It reported collaborating with Clevelanders for Public Transit to fight against fare hikes and service cuts, and with Portland’s Bus Riders Unite, which helped win a low- income transit pass and free student transit for two schools in an underserved part of the city.88
There is also potential for more organizing between transit operators and drivers for ride-hailing services and taxi companies. After all, it’s not enough to tell drivers in already precarious job situations that they’re going to lose a work opportunity if Uber or Lyft is banned from a city or congestion pricing prevents cabs from entering the downtown. Efforts to try to unionize ride-hailing drivers are a good example of this—but limited if the drivers can’t legally unionize. A more promising struggle may be to include greatly expanded public transportation as part of a sweeping environmental program, with a priority on hiring drivers who are currently working for ride-hailing and taxi companies, including a variety of rural transportation options.
Dubal told me that ride-hailing drivers often think about concepts like the Green New Deal: “When you’re in meetings, drivers are constantly talking about the environmental impacts that these companies are making on cities, on roads, traffic congestion, accidents, all that stuff.” She adds that a vehicle cap, like the taxi medallion system that restricts the number of for-hire cars on the road, is beneficial for both wages and climate impacts of ride-hailing.
Ride-hailing services and autonomous vehicle fleets are an attempt to dodge and undermine labour rights at every level, with the long-term goal of eradicating the very need for workers. So far, many governments have allowed it to happen without much opposition. But the response to such pressures should not be to cede even more ground to the logic and demands of new automotive companies.
We must work instead to prioritize public transportation as the primary mode of mobility in communities. This would help to provide jobs for such workers, as well as opportunities for “just transition” employment out of the fossil fuel economy and into manufacturing, maintaining, and operating complex machinery like buses, trains, and subways. Such demands can easily include nationalization for the purposes of manufacturing electrified transit vehicles. For example, in response to the announced closure of the General Motors factory in Oshawa, Ontario, labour leaders called for the nationalization of the plant to maintain jobs and manufacture electric vehicles for Canada Post.89 There’s an excellent precedent for this: in 1971 the Manitoba government nationalized the bus manufacturer that would eventually become New Flyer Industries, the largest bus producer in North America (though the province privatized it in 1986).90
This vision slots in perfectly with demands formulating around the proposed Green New Deal, with popular interpretations of the plan including nationalization of fossil fuel companies, electric utilities, and housing.91 Centring public transportation in this transition as a means to create good unionized work seems particularly intuitive. Such efforts would help provide highly liberatory and ecological job opportunities—with technologies like automation integrated in a way that promotes human well-being and the right to the city, rather than further promoting anti-labour principles.