The number of lawsuits and police raids aimed at Uber is pretty amazing.
Here's a smattering of the lawfare being waged against Uber (there are many, many others):
- Class action law suit against Uber over its "safety fee" seeking the return of the fee to all customers it has charged for it.
- Violation of consumer protection laws. DAs in LA and SF. Seeking fines + change in behavior.
- Violating India's financial laws by using an overseas payment mechanism. India bans uber, drivers face fines.
- South Korea indicts Uber and its CEO for operating illegal car service. Seoul bans Uber.
- France will ban Uber in 2015.
- Uber banned in Spain.
- Taiwan fines Uber and is seeking to ban it.
- Nevada banned Uber across the state. The company is attempting to crowdsource support to overturn it.
- Chinese police raid Uber driver training class.
I suspect that Uber would have enough support from driver "partners" to push through this resistance if most of them weren't making min wage or less (even though they take all of the economic risk by supplying the car and the labor). It would also get more support if the company was actually a "peering or sharing" system (where customers and drivers connect) rather than an Internet taxi service (a standard company that owns the customer relationship and treats and crowdsources its cars and driving).
JR
PS: I call companies based on what Uber does, turking companies. An Internet turking company uses the following to expand into traditional industries:
- Internet economics -- from global access to customers and workers via smartphones to massive economies of scale that drive costs down.
- An assemblyline managed by a smart phone app. This is new. It's Taylorism reworked for services. Workers micro-managed as if they were "bots." It also sets the stage for rapid 'botification' of work.
- Independent contractors who supply both capital (cars) and labor (driving) -- they take all of the risk.
IN the not too distant future, we may see a global turking company "employ" over a billion people.