Newfoundland expects more drivers earning less money to improve St. John’s
Yesterday, I had back-to-back phone calls oozing with irony.
One was with a St. John’s Newfoundland Taxi owner who is dismayed that St. John’s will now be open to an unlimited number of Uber vehicles; the second, with a Toronto Uber driver who cannot earn a living because there are too many Uber vehicles there.
It’s almost as if the open entry system which is clearly not working in Toronto will somehow function smoothly in historic downtown St. John’s.
Earla Philips of the Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario (RDAO) called first, to let me know that another protest event is being planned for May 1st. RDAO is one of several groups striving for better working conditions for gig workers including Uber, Lyft, couriers, and supporters. They have realized that open entry in the ground transportation market has led to tens of thousands more drivers than are needed all chasing the same pool of work.
RDAO and other groups estimate that rideshare drivers are earning approximately $6.37 per hour, less than half of the minimum wage.
Only a few minutes later, I received a call from Chris Hollett of Jiffy Taxi in St. John’s. Hollett and other Taxi operators in Newfoundland are astonished at the speed with which laws were re-written to permit Uber to operate there; the province re-wrote the definition of “public vehicle” to include rideshare and published it on December 21st, 2023, while the Taxi industry was busy serving holiday revellers.
It its haste to license a rideshare company – any rideshare company, apparently – Newfoundland’s first announcement on January 19th, 2024, resulted in the licensing of a firm owned by a man facing several charges for sexual assault involving minors. Whoops.
Meanwhile, Hollett says there has been no discussion on the impact of open entry and unlimited Ubers.
“Have you ever visited downtown St. John’s?” he asks. “It’s tight, it’s cramped NOW. There’s almost nowhere to stop, never mind park. How will the city manage hundreds of Ubers?”
The whole situation does seem like a very bad joke: more drivers earning less money is going to improve things in St. John’s, while going from 5,500 Taxis to 55,000 rideshares earning half the minimum wage has been a disaster for drivers in Toronto.
“There’s an elephant in the room every time Toronto discusses the vehicle for hire file, and it’s this: rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft need access to a constant, endless pool of amateur drivers because the average rideshare driver lasts less than six months in the job. Rideshare doesn’t just need drivers; it needs a big, deep pool of Redundant Drivers earning a pittance in order for its business model to function,” Taxi News wrote in 2021.
That situation has not changed. However, the pool of eager and naïve new rideshare drivers is drying up as amateurs discover driving is expensive and not always fun. Uber is now expanding to smaller cities, like Red Deer, Alberta and St. John’s, Newfoundland, and making deals with traditional Taxi companies in New York and Chicago in order to access enough drivers to fill orders.
Rideshare and gig drivers have recently organized global protests to demand the system be re-designed to ensure hard-working drivers can earn a living wage.
In other words, to make it more like the very Taxi system that Uber disrupted.
The irony.
