In the US and UK, thousands of delivery drivers and workers for ride-share companies went on strike last Wednesday. They planned to go on strike for a whole day in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Orlando, Hartford, and Newark.
All of the delivery drivers from the UK who worked for Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Stuart would stop taking items between 5 pm and 10 pm to try to get paid more.
A few of the delivery drivers spoke out, saying they don’t think the strike will change anything. One of them is Deliveroo driver Evadur Rahman, who said, “One day is not enough.” “If we strike for more than one day—two, three, or four days—they’ll be hurt.”
Rahman explained that he was planning to join the strike because his own pay had been cut from about $175 per day to $126 in the past few months. He says that they want to raise pay more than anything else.
A lot of service people went on strike and didn’t work on Wednesday. Jocilyn Floyd, an Uber driver who took part in the strike, said, “Uber has shown over and over that they care more about making money than about people.” At shareholder meetings, people only talk about making money. There’s no talk about safety, keeping the business from being shut down, or paying people.
Uber, on the other hand, said that the strike had no affect on their business. “Despite the news stories, we’ve seen no effect on our operations or riders’ trust,” an Uber spokeswoman said. A lot more people are out on the roads today than there were at this time last week in most places.
Many of the people who work for some companies are thinking about joining a union. Some companies are open to it, but others think they pay enough.
