Uber Drivers Gather Outside SF Office To Protest Dismissals, Payment System, Lack Of Input

A group of current and former Uber black car drivers gathered outside the startup's San Francisco headquarters to protest what they said was unfair treatment by the company. When I arrived at around 5:45pm, a group of 30 or so were chanting, "No respect, no Uber!" every time someone left the building. The person leading the chants, Rajab Alazzeh of SF Best Limo, had apparently been asked by the other drivers to serve as an unofficial spokesman, and he rattled off a number of demands. He said that Uber needs to lower the company's payment cut from 20 percent to 10 percent, to designate a specific portion of the payment as tip that's paid directly to drivers, to offer health insurance (which Alazzeh said had been promised), to make the drivers into full employees with W2 paperwork, and to stop bringing on "unlicensed, illegal, unsafe operators" who don't have TCP certificates and permits. (Note that CEO Travis Kalanick disputes a number of Allazeh's complaints ? see the update below. Also worth noting is the fact that the California Public Utilities Commission cleared Uber to work with non-commercial drivers.)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/V0asEj2zCjM/

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