Some Chicago ride-share drivers took part in Valentine’s Day strike, but for many it was business as usual

About 100 ride-share drivers gathered in O’Hare Airport’s ride-share staging lot around midday Wednesday to protest working conditions, but the lack of a widespread strike meant many travelers had no trouble getting rides.

Drivers for Uber and Lyft organized the Valentine’s Day strike with the help of the Justice for App Workers coalition and partner organizations. The group occasionally chanted “shut them down!” during a late morning rally in the staging lot where ride-share drivers wait for ride requests to come in. The strike was an effort to spotlight long-running demands for better wages, safety practices and job protection. While organizers asked drivers to stay off the apps for the day, the focus was primarily on refusing rides to and from O’Hare.

But many drivers were operating as usual. The departures level of the airport’s Terminal 2, where the ride-share pick-up zones are located, seemed to operate normally Wednesday afternoon. Passengers waited for their respective rides to arrive and went on with their days as planned.

Noah Brown of Los Angeles said someone who knew he was traveling to Chicago sent him a news article about the strike, but he still ordered an Uber when he landed and didn’t have any trouble doing so. In Los Angeles, where Brown traveled from Wednesday, he said he has heard ride-share drivers raise concerns about fair wages.

“It’s a double-edged sword because businesses have to make money, but you also want a fair, living wage for somebody that works for that business,” Brown said.

Lyft told the Tribune in an email on Wednesday afternoon, “So far, we have not seen a meaningful impact on wait times or service levels as a result of these events.” An email statement from Uber also Wednesday afternoon said, “Despite the headlines, we’ve seen no impact to our operations, drivers working or reliability for riders. In fact, at O’Hare there were more trips so far today than there were during the same period last week.”

Laniece Thomas of Chicago was waiting for her Uber near the curb and said she hadn’t heard drivers were on strike, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary during the process of ordering the ride.

“I don’t have a problem with people protesting,” Thomas said. “There’s so much that we have to stand for. It is tragic to hear the stories about the robberies and people being killed just trying to make a few dollars on the side. I think rideshare is so important, so I hope we do something about their concerns.”

Chris Liebelt, one of the drivers who rallied Wednesday, has been driving for Uber and Lyft for seven years and said when he first started out, “they had so many pay incentives” and “it seemed like an extraordinary job.” He started working part time only to realize he could make more money driving full time than he was making at a different full-time job.

After driving full time for a couple of years, he said the wages started decreasing more and more as the companies changed their pay structures. Liebelt said he then went back to driving part time and picked up a second job because he would have had to increase the amount he was driving by 20% to make the same amount.

“I’m hoping that our local legislators notice this because there’s no laws for the gig economy,” he said. “It’s the wild west. They can pay us as low as they want to while they continue to reap the rewards. We’re just asking for a fair share.”

Drivers also raised issues with the process the apps use for deactivating driver accounts. While Uber and Lyft have both said they have improved not only the way deactivations are carried out but also appealed, Liebelt said the process still leaves drivers feeling helpless.

“If a customer wants to say something about a driver, quite often so they’ll get their fare refunded, that driver is then deactivated from the app without any due process,” Liebelt said. “There’s no way to fight. You’re earning a full-time wage and then suddenly the next day, you’re out of a job with no leg to stand on. That needs to change.”

Uber said its drivers in the U.S. were making about $33 per utilized hour as of last quarter. The company’s “take rate,” or the amount the company makes on rides, is below 20% in the U.S. after accounting for commercial insurance costs.

But studies have shown drivers make far less after factoring in vehicle expenses, fuel costs, and business taxes. A March 2022 report analyzing data on more than 22 million ride-share trips in Chicago from January 2021 through June 2021 found drivers earned $13 in W-2 equivalent wages. The report from the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Illinois Economic Policy Institute found only 17% of Uber and Lyft rides resulted in a tip to the driver.

Lyft announced earlier in February new driver benefits coming this year, such as drivers earning at least 70% of rider fares each week, after external fees, as well as a new earnings summary giving drivers a breakdown of where their fares are going.

Carmelita Peralta said she’s nearing her ninth anniversary driving for Uber and Lyft and though she loves people and the job, she came out to rally on Wednesday because “we’re so underpaid.”

“I live day to day, not month to month or week to week,” Peralta said. “It’s day to day for most of us now, and we need someone to come to our rescue.”

She said drivers have reached a point now where “something’s got to give,” and she thinks it might be time for the government to get involved to regulate their work.

Ricardo Marquez, an organizer with the Independent Drivers Guild, said he stopped driving for Uber and Lyft about a year ago because of changes he noticed in the business model. For example, he said the algorithm the apps use make it harder for veteran drivers, making room for new drivers to step in and take rides faster and more efficiently.

“Things won’t get any better until they are regulated,” Marquez said. “Drivers need to come together and take these collective steps toward regulating this type of job because we have a long way to go.”