Uber is a company based in San Francisco that provides a private car transport service through a mobile application that connects passengers and drivers directly. Together with AirBnb, it is considered one of the major representatives of the so-called sharing economy.
This company operates in 77 countries and more than 616 cities worldwide, and its cars can be booked using the website or mobile application, through which customers can also track the position in real time of the car booked. The Uber company receives contests around the world for different reasons and from different subjects, mainly from other taxi drivers. The taxi drivers challenge the Uber not to pay taxes; they also claim that the people who drive this type of taxi would not have the license, such as those driving the taxis, and for this reason, they would put the passenger at risk. The protests also come from the same Uber drivers, who claim that the working conditions are too rigid and their workers' rights would not be respected. In 2015 there were protests in
ten different countries that also caused serious accidents. On December 31, 2013, Syed Muzaffar driving an Uber hit a six-year-old girl in San Francisco. The girl's family filed a complaint with Uber Technology Inc, claiming that Uber was responsible for Syed Muzaffar's actions. On December 8, 2014, almost a year after the incident, Syed Muzaffar was arrested, and it was discovered that he had already been arrested in 2004 in Florida for driving in a state of jealousy. This incident has sparked much controversy. In December 2014, Uber Technology Inc. was closed in Spain, only to be available again in 2016 after the
drivers had provided a suitable driving license.
In Australia, thanks to the constant protests, the people who guide the Uber now enjoy the same rights and benefits as the common drivers. The protest of taxi drivers has created disruption and chaos in many cities, but the climate around them has changed compared to just two years ago, also because of the fact that the perception is that Uber and the rental services with a driver are sharing economy as the cabbages at snack. In recent years the protests - even violent - against Uber have spread throughout Europe, Asia and even the United States, where the multinational is based.
Protests of taxi drivers against reputed unfair competition and protests of Uber drivers due to starvation and bad working conditions that do not provide any social security or health insurance. Little by little, a reality of exploitation has emerged, and even in California, Uber's birthplace, the Labor Commission has established that the multinational must frame its drivers as employees, with all that this, entails in terms of rising costs. To dampen the enthusiasm of many people towards the so-called Uber model has also contributed to the fact that the tariffs are variable and that if sometimes the consumer can save something compared to the taxi, in times of greatest need the prices go to the stars: everything the opposite of the public service carried out by white cars, whose tariffs are agreed at a municipal level. In the war against Uber, the taxis won the first fight two years ago, obtaining the banning of the so-called UberPop service, the one that allowed anyone to improvise taxi driver and offer through the app "passes" at super discounted rates and now there are various other websites that provide such https://www.13melbourneviccabs.com.au/.This was the real killer application with which Uber wanted to quickly break the market and put them drivers against the wall. To block it where the courts and not the government that indeed, of extension in extension postpones the entry into force of the anti-abusive rules and renounces to regulate the sector, causing an intolerable far west to the almost exclusive the benefit of this controversial multinational company that he does not even pay taxes. Taxi drivers may or may not be nice, but they perform a public service, are required to comply with certain standards, are entrepreneurs who operate under a regulated tariff regime, pay taxes and offer to the transported the widest protection in the event of an accident. Maybe the standards are not exactly the same from city to city, maybe the cars are not always adequate, sometimes there are problems, but those driving a taxi is required to have certain requirements and if something goes wrong the consumer knows who to turn to protest and assert your rights. All this fails when you enter the shadow of cars with drivers, be they Uber or other companies. Is it tolerable that the government does not deal with the regulation of the sector, effectively allowing a giant to enter the market by dumping? Would this be the idea that one has of competition? Uber can afford to lose $ 4 billion, as it has in recent years, and to continue to stay on the market with the huge funds lavished by its investors. It is the way of operating a monopolist in pectora, which is giving a free hand without creating an advantage for consumers, workers and the state.
Siddharth Kapoor is a traveller, cook, art lover and also owns www.13melbourneviccabs.com.au which offers cheap and reliable taxi services all around the Melbourne.
Post new comment
Please Register or Login to post new comment.