Help NYC drivers launch a platform cooperative

**We are increasing our goal to $20K after meeting the initial goal of $10K in 24 hours! Every dollar helps ensure that we are able to do the outreach and engagement necessary to fellow drivers to make this cooperative a success.**

In New York City, Uber and Lyft run on the exploited labor of a 91%-immigrant workforce of 85,000 drivers. Through misclassification of drivers as independent contractors the corporate rideshare platforms seek to turn back the clock on a century of labor and social movement gains, and push drivers into poverty by externalizing all vehicle costs onto drivers and taking extortionate commissions on each ride. Even before the crisis, over 70% of drivers had less than $1,000 in savings, a reflection of New York City’s deep racial wealth gap and the predatory structure of the rideshare platform economy. Drivers and their allies have organized for change with strikes, protests, boycotts, lawsuits, and legislation, but Uber and Lyft always find loopholes to keep exploiting drivers. Most recently, the largest gig platforms spent over $200 million to pass Prop 22 in California, which legalized a sub-minimum wage.

Now the pandemic has pushed tens of thousands of drivers out of work. The industry is still down by nearly 40%. We’re asking for your help to build back better with a new strategy: launching a driver-owned alternative to Uber and Lyft.

The Drivers Cooperative is poised to launch the first “platform co-operative” rideshare app in New York City within a month, pending funding for a membership drive. The Drivers Cooperative will:

1. Immediately boost driver income by returning profits to drivers and establish basic employment rights for workers in the sector.

2. Provide a second chance to drivers who were “deactivated” by Uber and Lyft without due process based on specious and often racially-biased customer complaints.


3. Save drivers money through a credit union partnership that allows drivers to escape predatory vehicle financing.

4. Long term, fight for a just, green transition to electric vehicles through a Green New Deal for the For-Hire Vehicle Industry.

Interested drivers can REGISTER HERE.

Accomplishments to date:

• Elected a board of drivers to guide the project representing the diversity of the for-hire vehicle industry
• Assembled a skilled team of labor organizers (IDG-Machinists Union, IWW), ridehailing operators (Uber, Juno), full-stack engineers, branding experts/designers, fleet managers, and drivers
• Confirmed pilot with Cooperative Home Care Associates (the largest worker coop in the US) to provide transportation for home care workers to clients’ homes
• Won grant funding from Emergent Fund and the Workers Lab
• Completed paid trips paid for by AOC to get early voters to the polls!
• Purchased ridehailing app code and completed customizations for NYC launch
• Engaged >1,000 for-hire vehicle drivers with >100 registered

Goals for Q1:

• Onboard 3,000+ drivers
• Raise full seed round
• Launch consumer ridehailing service

Funds raised in this campaign will go directly to for-hire vehicle drivers to recruit and train new members of the cooperative.  We already have a completed app, but need these funds to pay unemployed and underemployed drivers to recruit and train fellow drivers to build the strength and power of the cooperative.

The cooperative will be launching our own ridehailing platform, shown below. It will be in the App and Playstore available to use in early 2021.  With The Drivers Cooperative, riders pay less; and drivers make more - because the co-op only takes the amount required to cover its costs, compared to corporate ridehailing platform that take 25 - 40 percent commissions on each trip so they can return profits to their Wall Street and Silicon Valley investors (speculators).  

The Drivers Cooperative (TDC) is not just another ridehailing platform - it is also about using our collective bargaining power to get great deals and lower operating costs for our struggling members. 

The biggest benefit will be that drivers will fully own this cooperative company. Member - Owners will elect the Board of Directors and share in profits, giving power and voice directly to the people who move New York.