Business & Tech Appeals Court Upholds Prop. 22 Gig Worker Law, But It’s Still Likely Headed To State Supreme Court A big win for Uber and Lyft to not treat their drivers as employees, as a state appeals court has upheld the Prop. 22 law exempting rideshare companies from minimum wage and overtime rules, but this thing’s expected to go to the state Supreme Court.
Business & Tech Uber and Lyft Drivers Are Being Carjacked and Thieves Are Then Robbing Passengers They Pick Up Another thing to fear in your late-night ride! Uber and Lyft are cooperating with an investigation that's happening in Baltimore into a series of carjackings of rideshare drivers that subsequently turn into robberies of rideshare riders.
SF Politics Gavin Newsom Campaign Drops Nearly $2 Million To Defeat Electric Car Measure Prop 30 Supposedly climate-friendly Governor Newsom’s campaign just gave nearly $1.9 million to defeat Prop. 30, the millionaire tax that would help fund California’s conversion to electric cars only.
Business & Tech Lyft and Stripe Both Lay Off Hundreds of Employees, Citing Economy A day ahead of expected layoffs at Twitter that will thoroughly gut the company as we know it, San Francisco-based Lyft announced the laying off of 13% of its workforce, and South San Francisco-based Stripe is cutting 14% of its workforce.
SF Politics Prop 30 Oddly Pits Lyft Against Silicon Valley VC Billionaires in Electric Car Battle There’s a rift between Lyft and the money men who power Silicon Valley over Prop. 30, the tax proposal to fund electric vehicles, as venture capital billionaires are dropping millions and enlisting Gavin Newsom to defeat the tax hike.
Business & Tech Have You Had a Lot of Uber Drivers Cancel Trips On You Recently, Or Refuse to Take You Somewhere? Are You a Driver? We'd Like to Hear From You Rideshare services, while still private companies with their own profit motives and foibles, have become like utilities we take for granted. But the days of quick and easy Uber rides seem to be gone since the pandemic.
SF News Female Lyft Driver Describes Harrowing Encounter With Passenger, Fleeing Onto Freeway A Lyft driver in San Jose says she was forcibly grabbed from behind by an aggressive passenger, which led to her swerving dangerously while going 70 miles per hour and pulling off a busy freeway.
Business & Tech Lyft Logged More Than 3,000 Sexual Assault Incidents In Three Years, According to Their Own Data While the company claims that nearly 40% of the sexual assaults were by riders. more than a thousand assault cases a year seems unusually high for any type of business.
SF News Pride Revelers Beware: Muni Shuts Early, Uber and Lyft Rides Are Going to Be Expensive You may want to strap on some good walking shoes if you're planning to party-hop during this late-pandemic Pride Weekend in San Francisco, because things aren't exactly back to normal with public transportation or the world of rideshares.
Business & Tech Vallejo Woman Sues Lyft Over Alleged Kidnapping By Driver With Meth Pipe A Vallejo woman has filed suit against Lyft over an April 2019 ride gone wrong in which she had to climb out of the car's window to escape a creepy driver.
Business & Tech Uber and Lyft Both in Rush To Offer ‘Free’ Rides to Get Vaccine (Many of Which Won’t Be Free) The two competing rideshare giants announce two different competing plans to offer free rides for vaccine shots, but the fine print shows plenty of these rides will not actually be free.
Business & Tech Lyft Is Contemplating an Uber Eats-Style Food Delivery Pivot The rideshare company thinks it can find a way to deliver food without tacking on high commission fees, which probably involves blowing ever-larger amounts of other people’s money.
SF News Election Limbo Headlines: Uber and Lyft Get Their Wish, Prop 22 Passes The dialysis regulation measure Prop 23 appears to be going down, Mark Kelly beat Martha McSally for the Arizona Senate seat, and as promised Facebook and Twitter flagged Trump's false claims about winning the election and the Democrats trying to "steal" it.
SF Politics Uber and Lyft’s Prop 22 Only Up By 3 Points in Poll, Despite $186 Million War Chest An all-time California record of campaign cash has not yet sealed the deal for Lyft and Uber in their campaign to ensure their drivers are not classified as employees.
Business & Tech Uber and Lyft Will Not Shut Down at Midnight After Last-Minute Reprieve Lyft was about to shut down all California rideshare operations at the stroke of midnight, but an appeals court granted a reprieve only about 12 hours before that would have happened.
Business & Tech As California Labor Case Heads For Appeal, Uber Says It May Halt Operations In State Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi gave an interview on MSNBC Wednesday morning saying that the company would likely have to shut down operations in California for at least several months if it is forced to make all its drivers employees.
Business & Tech Lyft Is Laying Off Nearly 1,000 Workers, Furloughing 300 More Lyft just announced that it will lay off 17 percent of its workforce, or 982 people, in order to address losses that it faces due to pandemic lockdowns. And employees say they were mistakenly all sent an email earlier this week using an insensitive name for the cost-cutting project.
Business & Tech Lyft Pivots To ‘Essential Deliveries’ Now That No One is Riding Anywhere Lyft is generating a little more revenue for drivers who’ve taken a hit, but the new program will cater to companies and nonprofits instead of individual delivery customers.
Business & Tech Lyft E-Bike Users Balk At Price Hike Users of Lyft's previously flammable Bay Wheels e-bikes are in revolt this week after the company announced price hikes effective March 2 that make the formerly cheap monthly membership option significantly less cheap.
Business & Tech Lyft Is Being Sued By 20 Victims In Second Sexual-Assault Suit A second lawsuit was filed Wednesday against Lyft in a case involving 20 cases of sexual assault involving drivers. And this suit joins a separate one filed in September by the same law firm that covers 14 other cases of assault.
Business & Tech Study Finds That Black and LGBTQ People Still Have Rideshare Drivers Cancel On Them More Often Despite changes to the information drivers see before they accept a ride, drivers for Uber and Lyft still appear to be biased against picking up black and LGBTQ people according to a newly published study.
Business & Tech Gig-Worker Bill Signed By Governor, Rideshare and Delivery Apps Unhappy As expected, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 5 into law today, meaning that, at least in theory, companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash will not be able to relegate the majority of their workforces — the drivers — to contractor status.
Business & Tech ‘Gig Worker’ Wage And Benefits Bill Passes Both Chambers Of Legislature, Likely To Become Law The gig may be up for the so-called unicorn startups who’ve coasted on crazy cheap labor, as California is poised to become the first state in the nation to make companies classify independent contractors as employees.
Business & Tech Lyft Hit With Sexual Assault Lawsuit From 14 Different Women Lyft has allegedly received more than 100 rape and assault claims in California alone, and the victims say the company "chooses to stonewall" on prosecuting drivers. Now 14 women are suing.
Business & Tech Uber Driver Caravan Descends On Company HQ, Joined By Pete Buttigieg That convoy of Uber and Lyft drivers that drove up from Southern California to stage a demonstration in Sacramento on Wednesday made their way, predictably, to protest outside Uber's SF headquarters on Tuesday.