Drivers demand better wages

David Crane keeps a yellow legal notepad in his car, pages upon pages filled out with his thoughts on the concerns of thousands of other rideshare drivers like him, with demands that boil down to better wages, safer working conditions and union rights. “We deserve better pay for the amount of time that we spend away from home. We deserve to have livable wages, and we’re not receiving them,” Crane said.

At a news conference Sunday afternoon, Illinois rideshare drivers and delivery workers from Uber, Lyft, Grubhub and Doordash announced that different local groups —which add up to 20,000 members — are joining in a national movement led by Justice for App Workers. “This is a roller coaster of a job. Any day we go out there, we don’t know what we are going to face. We might be going out there and it might be a good day where earnings are solid and customers are pleasant,” said Lenny Sanchez, of JFAW and the Illinois Independent Drivers Guild.

“But at the same time, we’re always thinking about the potential of having a customer that’s unruly and unhappy and makes an unfair claim against us. And with an algorithm that is our boss, that sometimes means our position as a worker is terminated and our means to provide for our families are completely pulled from underneath us,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez spoke in front of a banner with the coalition’s logo: a pumped fist holding a cellphone, the word “justice” written in 11 different languages in a circle around it. JFAW originated sixth months ago in New York with 100,000 workers, and Sunday’s announcement marked the movement’s expansion into the Midwest.