‘It was traumatic’: Uber, Lyft drivers decry low pay and unfair deactivations

theguardian.com:

For more than five years James Jordan worked full time for Uber in Los Angeles, California, until early 2022, when he was permanently deactivated from the app – Uber’s equivalent of being fired.

He said he later found out he was deactivated due to old customer complaints, but that Uber would not listen to his appeals or offer to provide dash-cam footage to disprove the allegations.

“Within a week, 10 days, I had gotten a number of complaints. I didn’t know where they were coming from,” said Jordan, who said he completed over 27,000 rides for Uber and had a 4.95 rating on the app before his permanent deactivation.

Jordan’s is not an isolated case. A report published by the Asian Law Caucus and Rideshare Drivers United, based on survey responses from 810 rideshare drivers for Uber and Lyft in California, found two-thirds of drivers have experienced temporary or permanent deactivations of their accounts, with drivers of color and immigrant drivers disproportionately affected. Jordan is Black.

The survey responses detailed unfair and non-transparent deactivations, with 30% of drivers claiming they received no explanation for deactivations. The survey detailed incidents of discrimination from customers and customers making frivolous complaints in order to gain free rides or credits from the rideshare companies. Drivers said there was no fair process in place for drivers to respond or advocate on their own behalf.

Jordan said his troubles started when he turned down trips that were miles away from his location and wouldn’t be economically worth taking. He also had issues with some riders who refused to adhere to Uber’s mask mandate policy that was still in effect at the time even though local and state mask mandates had been