After you promised to provide good opportunities
Uber in South Africa deprived its drivers and put them at risk
Drivers work at night and in places of intense violence.
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Uber driver's car was burnt by competitors.
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An Uber driver is on his way to pick up a customer.
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Protest against the company in a South African city.
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Sean Cupido worked in various professions, as a policeman, factory worker, and taxi driver;
But at the age of 44, Cupido could not find a way to thrive.
Violent gangs ruled Mannenberg, his apartheid-built town in South Africa, where he spent his entire life.
He is tired of having to remind his three children to lie down and cover their heads every time they hear gunshots.
Function
Then, in 2017, Cupido finally found a job that he thought could turn his life around.
The global company, Uber, promised to allow South Africans to limit their working hours and be free to act.
Cupido rented a car and began ferrying tourists around Cape Town's waterfront shopping and coastal resorts.
For a while, the payoff from partnering with Uber was good.
He started dreaming of building his own business and running a fleet of cars to transport passengers.
But little by little, he said, Uber made changes to its service, lowering his salary and increasing his risks.
The company hired new drivers in the city, flooded the streets with competitors, and halved the number of daily Cupido customers.
In an attempt to make up the difference, he logged on for 12 hours a day and began driving in the sprawling slums of the Cape Flats, where many drivers were too afraid to go.
The severity of the "congestion", as he called it, increased after Uber began allowing passengers, in South Africa, to pay in cash as part of an attempt to boost the ride rate.
Cupedo had heard of drivers being robbed and assaulted, but he was confident he could avoid danger.
He folded a stack of banknotes inside his wallet and worked long hours, unaware that he was driving straight into an ambush.
unfair decisions
In an effort to fundamentally change global transportation and make its investors “rich,” Uber has hired drivers, like Cupido, based on a vision to improve the way we get around.
Years later, drivers say they are worse off than when they started because Uber has made regulatory decisions that have deprived them of their ability to earn a living and increased the risks of driving in some parts of the world.
Uber's records offer a rare glimpse into years of the company's internal communications made possible by data that Mark McGahn, a former Uber executive, provided to the Guardian.
The data was shared with more than 40 news organizations, including the Washington Post.
The joint investigation, coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, provides insight into how the company views its drivers.
McGahn was the company's head of public policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, from 2014 to 2016.
Emails, promotions and text messages from 2013 to 2017 show that company officials, led by former CEO Travis Kalanick, are implementing a plan of action that has proven to be gradually undermining their drivers.
The documents showed that top executives advised local managers around the world to spend millions of dollars to motivate new drivers, then steadily raise Uber's commission, depriving those drivers of income and increasing the money that flows into the company.
In public, Uber has repeated the message that its service has enabled people to become “entrepreneurs.”
In private email exchanges, company officials referred to drivers as a mass of “offer,” whose low salaries and minimal job protections were necessary for Uber to turn a profit.
cut profits
The documents, along with interviews with four former company directors and 20 current and former drivers, show that Uber created working conditions that it knew would cause many drivers to suffer.
Documents and interviews showed that the global company incentivized drivers to sign up more than was necessary, slashed drivers' earnings and created a system that rewards workers for following routes and schedules that put them at risk of harm in locations where violence is rampant.
In written responses to The Washington Post's questions, company spokesperson Guess Glover said drivers have found good economic opportunities using the app, even as their earnings fluctuate as "a natural part of the business."
Since drivers may freely choose to work on different app-based services, Glover said, "it is essential that we seek to create conditions for drivers to be retained on the platform."
The official did not respond to questions about the driver Cupido or any of the specific information in Uber's circulating records.
A spokeswoman for the company's founder, Devon Spurgeon, said the new business model "requires a change in the status quo, as (Uber) has become a serious competitor in an industry where competition has historically been prohibited."
The spokeswoman did not answer questions about Uber's treatment of drivers, its business in South Africa, or its offers for cash payments.
Few advantages
The challenges that drivers face are particularly apparent in countries like South Africa, where extreme levels of unemployment and inequality give access to a large pool of workers willing to take on tough work with few advantages.
Knowing that one in three South Africans, of working age, is unemployed;
It is the highest unemployment rate in the world, in the list of countries tracked by the World Bank.
“The vast majority of workers cannot walk away and go to another job, because there are no opportunities,” said Darcy Du Toit, a lawyer and professor emeritus at the University of the Western Cape, who researches working conditions in the digital economy.
A group of drivers exposed Uber's violations of workers' rights in a South African court.
unexpected dangers
South Africa is one of the most violent places in the world;
Long before Uber arrived in the country, workers in the volatile transportation sector were a target of theft and violence.
The Washington Post did not find data to show that Uber caused the high crime rates in South Africa.
However, company policy decisions, such as implementing cash payments, after the idea was previously dismissed as less safe, have exposed some workers - including many new drivers - to a level of risk they say they could not imagine.
One night in 2019, the driver, Sean Cupedo, was carrying about 700 South African rand, or the equivalent of $50, when his phone rang with the name of his next passenger: Nadine.
Two men got into his car, saying their friend Nadine had let them ride.
After a short drive, an argument erupted, and a passenger repeatedly hit the driver in the head with the handle of the knife.
The men drove off in his rental car.
Lying in a hospital bed with stitches on his head, Cupedo realized that he was too afraid to drive again to earn a living.
He spent a month recovering from the assault, then worked the first job he could find, working on the shift at the cemetery in the city center.
"I've lost everything," he sighed.
20000
Drivers working for Uber across South Africa.
Uber has made regulatory decisions that have deprived its drivers of their ability to earn a living and increased the risks of driving in some parts of the world.
minimum
Uber says it now has 20,000 drivers across South Africa, including delivery drivers for Uber Eats.
Some say they are struggling to meet the minimum wage, now equivalent to about $1.40 an hour, after sharing part of their profits with Uber and car rental companies and paying for expenses such as gas.
Some say they have been robbed by criminals, harassed during periodic government crackdowns on Uber, and targeted by rival taxi operators, who attack drivers to defend their stake.
In 2016 and 2017, two Uber drivers' cars in South Africa were set ablaze when their cars were set on fire, both victims of suspected attacks by taxi companies, according to news reports.
One of them died of his injuries, according to reports.
“Uber has become a platform for crime and a platform for fear,” said Derek Ongance, 66, a former Uber driver who helped organize the drivers’ protests and is one of the drivers who brought a lawsuit against the company. That the traffic police stop you and impound your car, or you fear the attacks of criminals.”
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