Remember when the argument was cabs vs Uber? Well, there's a new player in the game, and Uber's drivers sure don't like it. Sometimes the fall from the cutting edge can be the worst one of all!

Last month, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had a lot to say about self-driving cars at the Code Conference. According to re/code, Kalanick said that, yes, when driverless cars are here, human Uber drivers will have to go.

“‘Look, this is the way the world is going,’” Kalanick said would be his explanation to Uber drivers who might lose their jobs down the road. “If Uber doesn’t go there, it’s not going to exist either way,” he said.

“The world isn’t always great,” he added.

But members of Uber's contractor workforce, which was, not all that long ago, also described as "the way the world is going," apparently want to stop that momentum.

In a rally in front of the company's corporate HQ on Market Street Monday, dozens of Uber drivers told KCBS about experiences of exploitation, poor pay, and that they "are taken for granted by the company that doesn’t give them enough respect."

Ramzi Reguii, head of the Uber Driver’s Network, told KCBS that he took particular issue with Kalanick's support of self-driving cars, saying that “The reason Uber is expensive is because of the dude in the car. Once we get rid of the dude in the car, Uber will be cheaper...That statement is very disturbing.”

Of course, both Kalanick and an Uber spokesperson reached Monday describe the move to self-driving cars as a "decades-long process." More immediate concerns for local drivers might be worries that the California PUC will shut down Uber and its ilk if they keep taking passengers to airports and the PUC's requirement that companies like Uber dramatically increase insurance coverage for all their drivers.

[KCBS]