Q&A
Q&A on lockouts and driver payroll
4:49:51
·
130 sec
Council Member Shekar Krishnan asks about the relationship between lockouts and driver payroll. Zubin Soleimany from the New York Taxi Workers Alliance explains that lockouts were not contemplated in the original payroll rules and may be subverting the purpose of fair compensation for drivers.
- Soleimany argues that drivers should be paid for all time they are available to work, including during lockouts
- He states that the current implementation of lockouts contradicts the intent of the payroll rules
- Soleimany refutes a claim made earlier by an Uber representative about lockouts being part of the original plan
Shekar Krishnan
4:49:51
Quick indeed.
4:49:52
Thank you all for your testimony.
4:49:54
Zoom and I said a question for you.
4:49:56
How do lockouts actually relate to the payroll.
4:49:58
And what does the payroll require?
Zubin Soleimany
4:50:01
Alright.
4:50:01
So so that yeah.
4:50:02
Thank you, council member.
4:50:04
So what the point of the payroll is, like is to approximate what any other minimum wage law does.
4:50:11
The point of it is to compensate drivers for all time that they are at work.
4:50:17
And the rule does not contemplate lockouts.
4:50:20
They were not contemplated when TLC passed the rule.
4:50:23
They were not contemplated when professors, parrot and or like, put their put their report together.
4:50:31
The language of the rule says that you should be paid for all drivers to that utilization accounts for all time that drivers make themselves available to receive dispatches.
4:50:42
It doesn't say that they're only paid for time to log on.
4:50:45
So you take example of a driver who works in the they live in the Bronx.
4:50:48
They go to Manhattan.
4:50:49
They pick somebody up.
4:50:50
They take them to the Eastern Queens, and they're locked out when they do the drop off.
4:50:55
They're still available at that point.
4:50:57
They are trying to work, but they've been locked out for an hour or 2 or so.
4:51:02
At that point, they are still they are still available to see dispatches.
4:51:07
That time should be counted under the text of the rule, but it's not.
4:51:10
So when Uber fails to provide the data that shows that time in which under the rules plain language, they are available to work, they are subverting the purpose of the rule.
4:51:19
And I know the gentleman from Uber had testified earlier that that the initial report by professors Parrot and Reich contemplated that companies could use lockouts.
4:51:28
And that's just not true.
4:51:30
I I was actually speaking to Professor Parrot about this 2 weeks ago, and he said, no.
4:51:34
It did not contemplate that.
4:51:36
The the report discussed the notion that companies more broadly would have to they would have to limit supply, but the idea of that would be to incentivize getting away from the oversaturation that had really wrecked the industry.
4:51:48
That would be a question of hiring an attrition.
4:51:51
Not of randomly locking out drivers in the middle of their shifts and creating chaos for individual drivers and for the whole workforce.
Shekar Krishnan
4:52:00
Thank you.
4:52:00
Thank you.