Matt Rourke/AP Photo
Uber’s shifting policies and foot-dragging on paid sick leave have frustrated drivers during the coronavirus outbreak.
When reached by phone at his Bay Area home, rideshare driver Steve Gregg explained that when he first started driving for Uber and Lyft, he instantly fell in love. “I remembered how much I loved people.”
He easily worked 12-hour days, winding through the streets of San Francisco and the East Bay picking up passengers, listening to their life stories. But when the coronavirus hit, he stopped driving, not wanting to risk his already fragile health. “I have multiple complications,” Gregg told the Prospect. “I can’t risk it.”
Nine counties soon enacted a Bay Area–wide shelter-in-place order on March 17, shuttering all nonessential businesses and urging residents to stay home as much as possible. The same day, Uber suspended its carpooling option to promote social distancing.
Remembering that Uber had offered two weeks’ paid leave to drivers who couldn’t work due to being immunocompromised or who had COVID-19, Gregg applied for the company benefit, dutifully submitting records of his various conditions and a doctor’s note excusing him from work.
The application didn’t specify whether the applicant had the coronavirus or whether their pre-existing medical condition made them susceptible to it. Uber “immediately cut me off the app, saying I was a ‘threat to passengers,’” Gregg said. “Five days later, they rejected me from gaining relief because I didn’t actually have the disease, and then they immediately reinstated me on the app.” At the time, Gregg had $100 to his name.
Gig workers have told the Prospect that they haven’t heard of anyone qualifying for the paid-leave provision.
While Uber isn’t the only gig company to offer paid leave, it was one of the first to announce the benefit, alongside other delivery companies like Instacart and DoorDash. But a number of gig workers have told the Prospect that they haven’t heard of anyone qualifying for the paid-leave provision, leaving them wondering who exactly qualified and where the millions of dollars that gig companies promised to their workers were going.
James, a 23-year-old in Texas who drives for both Uber and Lyft, also has been stiffed by Uber for paid leave he was led to believe he would get. At the outset of the outbreak, he told the Prospect, Uber had been the most proactive company of any he’s worked for in the five years he’s been an app-based worker.
“The first email any drivers got [from Uber] was on March 11,” he said. The email said that the company would provide drivers with cleaning supplies; the company then sent another email two days later encouraging drivers who had “mild illnesses or respiratory issues” to stay home and not drive.
James, who suffers from diabetes, made his last trip as an Uber driver on March 16. Uber told drivers that they would be entitled to an amount that was equal to the average of their earnings from the previous six months of driving up until March 6, if they were unable to drive.
“I sent them an email saying that I had type 1 diabetes, so I’m immunocompromised and that a specialist had directed me not to drive anymore,” James said. Uber responded to James that the company would provide two weeks of wages reflecting his average daily earnings over the last six months, deposited in one check. “It sounded great, so I applied for it, thinking, ‘Wow what a forward step from Uber, I’m surprised they’re so on the ball with this,’” James said.
Both Gregg and James said that when they went to follow up on receiving relief from Uber, they were given an extensive runaround that only ended when the company rejected their claims.
“They had it on their website that if a doctor [told] you to isolate because of COVID-19, they’d give you two weeks of paid leave,” Gregg said. “I was denied because they changed their policy in the two weeks after I applied.”
Every time he followed up on his claim with supporting paperwork, a new person would answer his emails. “It was always a form letter when they answered,” he said. “They called me the wrong name three different times.”
James said that when he first applied for paid leave, he was happy to think that he would get even “a crumb from Uber.” After he submitted his claim on March 17, the company did not reach out for another six days, despite telling him that they would give him an answer on his claim within two to three business days.
“They sent me a link that didn’t work. They said that a doctor or public-health official would have to log in and create an account with a medical ID to submit a special request form,” James said. “My doctor was frankly so busy she couldn’t. We make Uber literally all of their money and I can’t even afford my insulin in the state of Texas. They couldn’t even throw us a bone?”
The foot-dragging on paid sick leave appears to transfer the relief for workers from Uber to the federal government.
Though he had problems with the company long before the coronavirus pandemic began, Gregg said the way Uber has responded to the crisis was the final straw for him and he will no longer drive for them after the pandemic clears.
“They’ve just been cutting drivers’ throats. They’ve done nothing to supply, reimburse, compensate, follow up, or support,” he exclaimed. He compared driving for the company to sticking his head in a meat grinder, citing the risks involved. “It’s just been a lot of empty promises that have the gravity of life or death.”
Even before the crisis began, Uber looked as if it was on its last leg. Since going public in May 2019, the company has hemorrhaged billions of dollars every quarter, propped up by investors such as the Saudi royal family and ousted chief executive and founder Travis Kalanick.
Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s current chief executive officer, made a plea to the federal government for gig worker relief four days before Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act on March 27. His wording carefully sidestepped an ongoing legal battle over Uber’s alleged misclassification of its drivers.
“It’s the ultimate insult to go to the feds and ask to be subsidized,” Gregg said in response. “All of the burden is going on the state. Uber is getting subsidies, while at the same time begging to pay them what they should have been paying drivers.”
The CARES Act did add a policy change to the unemployment insurance system that allows gig workers to receive expanded jobless benefits. But the foot-dragging on paid sick leave appears to transfer the relief for workers from Uber to the federal government.
When reached for comment, an Uber spokeswoman said that the company had amended its policy on April 10 to include covering drivers who had pre-existing conditions in addition to those who had tested positive for COVID-19. “Any driver who submitted a claim between 3/15 and 4/10 before this updated policy was announced who would now be eligible under this updated policy, will receive financial support,” she said in an email to the Prospect.
For his part, James said he still hadn’t heard from Uber as of April 17. “I make them all their money and they [couldn’t] even make sure I [could] make my rent during the 14 days I was inside?” he said. “So many people get in my car day in and day out, and we’re invisible to them. People should take a look at what the people they don’t view as skilled workers do for them in their lives.”
