Uber drivers just announced a daylong strike

Drivers for the popular ride-hailing service in New York City are expected to protest outside the company’s Queens headquarters on Monday. From there they’ll proceed slowly, caution lights on, to protest at Vermont and 16th Street, which is apparently Uber’s San Francisco driver’s office.

Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis has called Uber’s operations “illegal”, a stance he repeated Monday in an interview with Columbian radio. “And also since we cut prices last time our outer borough business has more than doubled”.

Bhairavi Desai, of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance – which is organizing today’s protest – told the New York Post Uber drivers faced a “race to the bottom”. No driver wins this bidding war.

Per minute rate: Down from $0.40 to $0.30.

“The results suggest that customers who used to complain now take their business elsewhere and that taxi drivers are responding to competition from Uber by increasing the quality of their own service”.

Minimum fare: Down from $8 to $7.

The company told CBS2 that drivers have seen a 20 percent increase in hourly earnings since the fare cut, but some drivers said that hasn’t been their experience and with expensive auto payments to think about they say they feel trapped.

The lower fares mean drivers don’t have as much down time between trips, said Matthew Wing, an Uber spokesman. “In particular, in Chicago the growth of Uber was correlated with fewer complaints by taxi riders about heating and air conditioning, broken credit card machines and rude drivers”, Wallsten said. “What’s being auctioned off is their livelihoods and that’s unacceptable”.

Uber says if driver income does not increase after the change, then it will consider other options.