Uber drivers are workers, UK supreme court rules

Started by garbon, October 02, 2014, 07:30:41 AM

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garbon

I know we'd discussed Uber here and there in random threads, thought might as well get its own thread with this lovely piece.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/uber-teacher-appreciation-blog_n_5916234.html

QuoteTransportation service Uber is being criticized as "tone-deaf" for a blog post praising itself for offering underpaid teachers part-time jobs as drivers.

The post, titled "Teachers: Driving Our Futures," says Uber intends to "celebrate the educators who are also our Uber partner drivers." But some readers said Uber, which allows people to order transportation from a smartphone, seems to congratulate itself for giving underpaid teachers the opportunity to make supplemental income working as part-time drivers.

"Every day teachers are asked to do more with less, constantly faced with new challenges and limited resources. Uber opens the door for more possibilities and delivers a meaningful impact to the communities we serve," says the post.

It continues: "By utilizing Uber, teachers are increasing their earnings while dedicating their lives to shaping students' futures -- cultivating a generation that is imaginative, determined and believes in extraordinary possibilities."

In an op-ed for Digital Journal, writer and entrepreneur Aron Soloman slammed the car company's post.

"It would be difficult to argue that a more tone-deaf piece has ever been written," wrote Soloman.

A post on The Awl said the Uber blog "almost feels like a parody."

"Had Uber tweaked the language the slightly, with a pinch of outrage ... it would seem almost righteous, rather than crassly exploitative of the ills of the American education system. But the post seems to go to great pains to avoid acknowledging the actual issues facing teachers or the sources of those problems," the article said.

Twitter users also decried the post:

QuoteIn which @uber celebrates that our TEACHERS are so poorly paid they take 2nd jobs as unregulated taxi drivers http://t.co/mRMFJxIecy

QuoteStunningly tone-deaf post by @Uber — #Teachers: Driving Our Future | https://t.co/K96WqlqOCw Our educators shouldn't just scrape by. #SRVUSD

QuoteHas Uber become a parody of itself? http://t.co/9toAd7vGoJ We pay teachers shit, so let them work double shifts chauffeuring the moneyed

QuoteB/c we pay teachers so poorly, @Uber wants them to moonlight as drivers. Learn English Lit on your way to get lit. http://t.co/MuPb4jAeSd

QuoteAnyone else offended by @uber for this shameless "celebration" of teachers who have to drive taxis to make ends meet? http://t.co/yZuncRgJ1F

Quoteself-congratulatory @Uber doesn't get that #teachers cld best "drive our future" if they didn't have to drive taxis http://t.co/sl5ht9I1Pp

Uber did not immediately respond to The Huffington Post's request for a comment.

Uber's post reflects the sad reality that many teachers take part-time jobs to make ends meet. In 2011, the Association of American Educators found that one in five educators had second jobs. The National Education Association, the largest teachers union, reported that the average national starting salary for teachers in 2012–2013 was $36,141.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

derspiess

:lol:  Stupid Uber.  Teachers should never have to work more than 34 hours a week, 42 weeks a year.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

grumbler

Quote from: derspiess on October 02, 2014, 08:55:56 AM
:lol:  Stupid Uber.  Teachers should never have to work more than 34 hours a week, 42 weeks a year.
:lol:  Stupid Spicey.  Teachers work more than 40 hours a week.  The issue isn't that teachers are under-worked or under-paid.  It is that people think that the only significant compensation for work is pay.  This "uber being tone-deaf" thing is a totally fabricated 'crisis" that wouldn't even get mentioned except on a very slow news day.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

derspiess

"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

grumbler

Quote from: derspiess on October 02, 2014, 09:11:50 AM
Figured that would drag in our old pal grumbles :D
Just as I figured that, if anyone here was going to post confidently from ignorance, it was going to be either you or DSB.  :P
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

The Minsky Moment

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
--Joan Robinson

garbon

Quote from: grumbler on October 02, 2014, 09:06:02 AM
This "uber being tone-deaf" thing is a totally fabricated 'crisis" that wouldn't even get mentioned except on a very slow news day.

Well yes, of course.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Martinus

This reminds me of an Onion article from a while back: "Teacher fired after declaring she learned as much from her students as she taught them".  :lol:

Scipio

I always tell my students, right before they take the final: "If you have enjoyed this class half as much as I have, then I've enjoyed it twice as much as you."

Nobody laughs. And only about half of them get it.
What I speak out of my mouth is the truth.  It burns like fire.
-Jose Canseco

There you go, giving a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck.
-Every cop, The Wire

"It is always good to be known for one's Krapp."
-John Hurt

derspiess

Quote from: Scipio on October 02, 2014, 01:49:16 PM
I always tell my students, right before they take the final: "If you have enjoyed this class half as much as I have, then I've enjoyed it twice as much as you."

Nobody laughs. And only about half of them get it.

It's all in the delivery, man.  Which I never seem to get right myself in that type of situation.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Admiral Yi

Stupid Huffpost.  There are other reasons to earn money in your time off than desperate poverty.

The Brain

In a land of opportunity desperate poverty is self-inflicted.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

MadImmortalMan

Quote from: The Brain on October 02, 2014, 04:11:07 PM
In a land of opportunity desperate poverty is self-inflicted.

In my family's case, the self-inflicted poverty is the result of lifetimes of consistent and very hard work at making the exact wrong decisions in every case possible and never allowing any possible beneficial life choice slip through the cracks. I will have you know that is very hard work, and the edifice of destitution it has wrought stands as a testament to their diligence and effort.
"Stability is destabilizing." --Hyman Minsky

"Complacency can be a self-denying prophecy."
"We have nothing to fear but lack of fear itself." --Larry Summers


Josquius

It always bemuses me to read of the situation in the US where lots of teachers are unemployed.
In the UK they're desperate for teachers. Its the job people who can't get a job doing something else do.
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