Pretoria - A group of Uber drivers held a meeting on Friday with senior officials at the e-hailing company’s offices in Sandton demanding fare increases due to rising fuel prices in the country.
The heated meeting was held after some drivers staged a protest at Uber’s Sandton offices on Thursday, demanding fare increases after rising fuel prices in the country.
Uber drivers are complaining that the e-hailing company has not adjusted fares despite the cost of fuel rising from just under R20 per litre in January to over R26 per litre as of July.
The drivers submitted their grievances and were told to return on Friday, where Uber officials would meet with at least 20 nominated drivers.
During the meeting, drivers also raised concerns of how the e-hailing company had made changes without consultation and they are never available to address their issues.
“We want a service system that services people, you take 20% and you say it’s for administration, but because there’s no administration here, there’s just a nonsensical call centre that is there to handle people. I can call them now, they won’t assist me, they are just there for you to call when you feel like calling.
“You tell us that we are all making money, but that’s a lie, you are still making money when we don’t even make money,” said one of the drivers during the meeting.
Drivers also complained that to date, Uber has not addressed driver concerns around pricing on the e-hailing platform and they complain of significantly reduced profits on the platform.
“We can provide proof that we are not making profit, we are making enough just to keep pushing, but it’s not enough to cover insurance, service our cars and buy tyres. What you are doing is disempowering us and putting us into slavery.
“You call us your partners, but you exploit us, even clients laugh at us because of the prices they sometimes pay during the trips,’’ said the driver.
One of the drivers said he was happier with how things were done around 2014, saying he sometimes managed to make around R30 000 in a week.
“I even used to wear a suit because I took my job seriously, I made good money and there were tips as well but you removed the tips. Where does it hurt you if a client is happy with my service and decides to tip me? Please stop with all these changes because you are killing us.”
The drivers also demanded that a recently launched trip request function called trip radar be scrapped.
Drivers said they were concerned about trip radar as it was a system that was designed in a way where drivers had to fight for the same rider. Under trip radar, a rider flashes on multiple drivers screens at once, with the driver with the fastest reaction getting the trip.
Drivers complain saying that trip radar could cause accidents and will force them to focus on their phones, constantly.
The Uber official said the rollout of the function would be paused and reviewed.
He said Uber had rolled out trip radar after it noticed ride acceptance rates had dropped substantially since November last year, when Uber started displaying the upfront ride fare and destination to drivers upon a trip request.
IOL