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Most days at midday, Uber’s nondescript office in London’s King’s Cross opens its doors and dozens of men clutching sheaves of driving licences and insurance documents pour in. Many are first- or second-generation immigrants from places such as Afghanistan, Poland, Somalia and Nigeria eager to sign up to drive for the US tech company, whose phone-based minicab-hailing app has transformed the taxi industry in 58 countries.
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It has also created for its investors – including Goldman Sachs, Google and Travis Kalanick, its 38-year-old founder – a fortune these drivers can only dream of.
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On paper, Uber has been valued at more than $40bn (£26bn) while some drivers say they can work a 60-hour week and still struggle to make the minimum wage. Uber is expanding fast in the UK. It has 15,000 drivers in London and has secured licences to operate in 16 other locations, including Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle, as well as smaller places, such as Windsor, Solihull and Wakefield.
Uber’s “disruptive technology” was first launched in San Francisco in 2009 and came to London in 2012. It has seen thousands of drivers desert existing minicab firms. They are following an exodus of customers attracted by the phone app’s method of speedily connecting you with a driver nearby who will take you to your destination at a staggeringly cheap rate.
Consider two taxi fares. London King’s Cross to City airport: £21. City airport back to King’s Cross: £42. The first was an Uber, the second, a black cab. Same route, same comfort – but half the price with Uber.
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Kalanick has said Uber wants to have 42,000 drivers on London’s streets by next March – a sixfold increase on last September – as it pushes for a greater slice of the market. It looks highly ambitious, especially since the mayor, Boris Johnson, announced in March a curb on new private-hire driving licences.
Even so, it has transformed the taxi business hugely already. For months, black-cab drivers in London have waged a vocal campaign against Uber, claiming it should be regulated as stringently as them. In April, around 1,000 cabbies blockaded the streets around the offices of the regulator, Transport for London. Uber’s progress has seen the number of people signing up to learn “the knowledge” to become a black-cab driver fall by a third from 2012 to 2014.
But now there are signs Uber is facing an uprising from within, and concerns raised by some Uber drivers about possible vulnerabilities in the company’s handling of essential paperwork are just one part of it.
One night, late in May, in a windowless basement in Euston, 40 Uber drivers gathered to plot a fightback against the company’s policies. Driver after driver spoke passionately about their struggles working on the Uber system. They complained of falling pay, a lack of response from Uber to problems with difficult passengers, and a constant fear of being blocked from the system, especially if a customer complained.
They are yet another group of workers in 21st-century Britain anxious about their precarious employment status. One driver, Nizam Uddin, called for Uber drivers to unite.
“Remember, we are the assets of the company and if we are not valued and we get the drivers together, does Uber really think it can operate?” he said. “We need to get our drivers together, make a voice for ourselves.”
Rayne, another Uber “partner”, rallied the assembly in hyperbolic tones to no longer let Uber treat them “like dogs”.
Some drivers have tried to organise a switch-off, in which hundreds of them would gather, turn off their apps and so deprive Uber’s network of its lifeblood. But it hasn’t happened yet and is a big risk as Uber drivers are self-employed and can easily be starved of work if the company, which links customers to drivers while taking a 20-25% cut, chose to block them.
“One reason they are scared is, the vast majority of people in the private-hire industry are second- or third-generation immigrants,” said Rayne. “What comes with that is not just responsibility for family here, but for family back home, sometimes half a village. If they stand up to an operator and are struck off, it will not just be them and their children who suffer but their family back home, too.”
London cabs during a protest against Uber Technologies Inc.'s car sharing service in London
London cabs during a protest against Uber Technologies Inc.’s car sharing service in London Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Uber is not a conventional taxi company. The drivers can work as much or as little as they like. They pay commission of 20% or 25% to Uber on each fare, depending on whether they are driving a basic or a luxury car, but otherwise the money is theirs, after costs including insurance, car rental and fuel. Customers hire drivers through Uber’s app, which manages the payments. Uber is essentially a go-between.
“We are a marketplace, we have customers and drivers,” said Jo Bertram, the company’s regional director for the UK, Ireland and Nordic countries. “If drivers didn’t prefer the economic opportunities and flexibility they have with us, they would leave or work more with other operators. I absolutely believe it is an attractive opportunity. The average Uber driver working full-time will take home £35,000 to £40,000 a year after our commission, prior to costs. It is an attractive opportunity.”
She said drivers were “definitely earning well above the living wage in London and well above the minimum wage”.
The Guardian spoke to two drivers who said they earned less – one said he worked 90 hours a week for the equivalent of £6.44 an hour after Uber’s commission and costs, which is below the minimum wage of £6.50 an hour. Another, Terry Hoy, said for a 65-hour week he netted £6.30 an hour.
Uber said it runs lessons to help drivers maximise their income on the system and has negotiated some discounts for drivers on costs such as insurance and car rental.
Some regulators around the world have struggled with the concept. Uber was banned for a period in Delhi after one of its drivers was accused of rape; its services uniting customers with drivers who do not have taxi licences have been banned in Germany; and authorities in the Japanese city of Fukuoka cut short a pilot of the system. But many customers have been impressed by the speed of the technology and cheapness of the fares, and the company’s valuation continues to rise.
“It will change the taxi market permanently, but nobody quite knows how,” said Christian Wolmar, a transport analyst who is running to be Labour’s candidate for London mayor.
A future step could be driverless cars, and Uber is investing in the technology, which Bertram said would not be a reality for at least a decade. Until then, it insists drivers are its greatest asset.
“We absolutely care about the driver,” Bertram said. “They are the engine of our business.”
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i'll tell yer DOPE they pay rent and arnt guaranteed any work what work there is is frequently account work at poxy rates and in lousy places Hospitals The West End, to get good work you often have to BUNG the controller, drunks and known violent punters are dumped on yer, pressure is put on yer to work [be available stoopid long dangerous hours} and weekends, and remember your their customer 
