What Next TBD: Is Your Uber Drivers' Pay Rigged?

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2023

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Two gig workers standing side-by-side can be offered the very same job and get offered two different wages. Set by an algorithm and based on calculations that are never explained to the workers themselves, this unequal pay for equal work is already subject to lawsuits that call it a form of price fixing and wage discrimination, but the tech is being tested in other industries. Guests: Veena Dubal, law professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco Sergio Avedian, senior contributor at The Rideshare Guy If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Forgot your wallet? No problem.
0:03.0	With Samsung Wallet, everything you need is already on your phone.
0:08.0	Store your loyalty cards, earn rewards when you spend, and keep your travels smooth with boarding passes and train tickets ready to go.
0:15.0	You can even tap in on public transport, no unlocking, no digging around.
0:20.0	And yes, your payment cards can live here too.
0:23.1	Safely stored and ready when you need them. Travel Light, live smart. Set up Samsung Wallet today.
0:33.7	I want to tell you about an experiment, an experiment run by two Uber drivers in Chicago.
0:40.4	Driver A is a Tesla owner with the acceptance rate of 9% and a CR or cancellation rate of 14%.
0:46.6	And then driver B is a hybrid renter with an acceptance rate of 15% and a cancellation rate of 23%.
0:54.7	This is from the YouTube channel of the ride share guy, where you can learn all about
0:59.7	ride chair work, the ups and downs and tricks of driving.
1:03.5	And on the screen, you can see the display of two different driver's phones.
1:07.9	They're getting requests for the same job.
1:10.6	Same distance, same customer.
1:12.6	Everything is the same, except the amount of money they're being offered. So the first one
1:17.1	we're looking at is it's a 1702 ride. And there you go. Same ride, 1882.
1:26.5	In case you didn't catch that, the only difference is the drivers.
1:30.3	One is being offered $17.2 to do the job.
1:34.5	The other, $18 and $82.
1:37.7	And it's not a fluke.
1:39.0	Here's another trip.
1:40.1	Same exact thing.
	...

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