PAGE 4 |
June 1, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
... Portland looks at Uber driver standards
From Page 1
policies on so-called Transporta-
tion Network Companies
(TNCs) like Uber and Lyft.
Uber, which three years ago
entered Portland as a scofflaw
and villain, played nice at the
May 23 hearing.
“I acknowledge that we have
made missteps here,” Uber’s
new Northwest general manager
Alejandro Chouza told City
Council. “Now and in the future,
we will conduct our business
with integrity, humility and pas-
sion for improving the commu-
nity.”
Uber began operating in Port-
land in December 2014 in open
violation of local taxi ordinances,
and even deployed software
called Greyball that effectively
blocked City enforcement agents
from using the Uber app to sum-
mon a car.
One of the three items City
Council approved May 23 was
an ordinance that, among other
things, makes Greyball explicitly
illegal. Another resolution directs
the Portland Bureau of Trans-
portation (PBOT) to study
whether TNCs have contributed
to greater traffic congestion in
Portland.
But the resolution that got at-
tention from labor leaders directs
PBOT to develop a proposal for
a new oversight body focused on
“transparent collection and use of
“I
’m a Portland State student, and I love this city. I started
driving for Uber and Lyft in the fall of 2015. I’ve driven
over 40,000 miles for them, given thousands of rides,
and worked through snowstorms and holidays. [As drivers] we
are exempt from federal labor laws, including minimum wage,
workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance and the
right to collectively bargain. Our earnings are erratic and often
fall below minimum wage after driver expenses. A few months
after I started driving, Uber and Lyft cut rates with no warning.
We have no guarantee of protections from future rate cuts, so
at a moment’s notice we could be earning even less. We have
no recourse in the event of an unfair deactivation or other griev-
ance we might have with the company.”
— Uber driver Owen Christofferson,
testifying to Portland City Council
data, accessibility, wages, public
safety, safety and reliability for
passengers, equalizing standards
across the for-hire sector, and eq-
uitable dispute resolution.”
PBOT is supposed to work with
“This bill has many positives, most notably a
significant expansion of the VA caregivers pro-
gram that has successfully helped many veter-
ans stay in their homes while enabling their
family members to provide the care that they
need. Unfortunately, the positive aspects of
this bill were paired with provisions that I sim-
ply could not support. The bill invests billions
of dollars to support private health care for
veterans, but doesn’t put a single dollar into
filling 30,000 vacancies in the VA health system. This bias for pri-
vatization is extremely troubling.”
— Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
“The VA MISSION Act will provide more in-
centives and inducements to help attract
medical providers to the VA and keep them
there…. But I fear this bill will give broad au-
thority to VA leadership to send more veter-
ans out of the VA system. Given the relent-
less push by special interest groups to send
an ever greater number of veterans into the
private sector, I am concerned about the
Trump administration giving into those folks
and turning the VA over to ideologues or pri-
vatization partisans.”
— Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
stakeholder groups and come
back to City Council with such a
proposal within six months.
The resolution also directs
PBOT to study the issue of taxi
and TNC insurance. When Port-
land City Council legalized TNC
operations in 2015, it passed
“separate but unequal” regula-
tions imposing more stringent in-
surance and background check
requirements on taxis than on
TNCs.
Since then, TNC use in Port-
land has soared. PBOT officials
told City Council that over
10,000 people are driving for
Uber and/or Lyft in Portland,
providing 300 to 700 rides per
hour. That means TNC drivers
may now outnumber taxi drivers
by about 10 to 1.
At the hearing, Commissioner
Fish asked Uber and Lyft repre-
sentatives point blank if they
support the idea of the new over-
sight body.
“We do support finding a way
to accomplish the goals that
you’re looking to accomplish, so
we will happily work with you to
try to find an operational process,
understanding what those moti-
vations are,” said Chouza, the
Uber general manager.
“We are also open to having
creative conversations on how to
accomplish these,” said Lyft pub-
lic policy manager Rena Davis.
“That’s a lot of words,” Fish
replied. “Some questions do lend
themselves to yes or no.”
Pressed further by Fish,
Chouza said Uber is okay with
the proposal, depending on de-
tails; Davis said Lyft would pre-
fer the status quo but would work
with the City.
Judging by conversations the
Oregon AFL-CIO has been hav-
ing with Uber and Lyft drivers
for the last 30 months, the status
quo is not working for all.
“We have a TNC system in
the City of Portland without
checks and balances from the
drivers’ perspective, void of
transparency, a system where
workers’ voices are not heard,”
AFL-CIO President Tom Cham-
berlain told City Council.
Chamberlain was one of a
handful of people invited to
speak about the issue before
open public comment began. An-
other was Owen Christofferson,
a PSU student who drives for
both Uber and Lyft and supports
an AFL-CIO-backed driver
group, Transportation Fairness
Portland.
Christofferson said TNC driv-
ers need an oversight body like
City Council is proposing, be-
cause they’re exempt from min-
imum wage, workers’ compen-
sation, unemployment insurance
and the right to collectively bar-
gain.
“A few months after I started
driving, Uber and Lyft cut rates
with no warning,” Christofferson
said. “We have no guarantee of
protections from future rate cuts,
Turn to Page 10
... Bill moves toward VA privatization
From Page 1
ited to veterans who live more
than 40 miles from any VA
health facility, or who need
procedures those facilities can’t
provide within 30 days. The
VA Mission Act loosens those
rules, so much that the Con-
gressional Budget Office esti-
mates that an additional
640,000 veterans a year will get
VA-reimbursed medical care
from private doctors.
The VA Mission Act does
have elements that AFGE and
the AFL-CIO support, includ-
ing expansion of a program
providing in-home care: Up to
now in-home care has been
available only to post 2001 vet-
erans, but the VA Mission Act
expands eligibility to include
veterans of previous eras. The
VA Mission Act also includes
measures to address the person-
nel shortages that are fueling
"[The VA health system] is a national jewel, and we need to protect it,” said
longtime health care journalist Suzanne Gordon at a May 16 forum in Port-
land organized by AFGE. The event drew about 60 people, about half vet-
erans, and about 10 employees of the Veterans Administration.
longer-than-optimal wait times,
including recruitment, reten-
tion, and relocation bonuses,
and a new loan repayment pro-
gram for specialties where the
VA is experiencing a shortage.
More than 9 million veterans
depend on the VA health sys-
tem, which includes 150 hospi-
tals, 819 clinics, and 300 men-
tal health centers. All told, VA
facilities see more than 230,000
patients a day. It’s a population
that is older, poorer and sicker
Turn to Page 5