Manifesto of Rights & Liberty of World-Wide App-Based Drivers

Agreed by Consensus 30 January 2020 by delegates of the

Founding Meeting of the International Alliance of App-Based Transport Workers

☙

We, app-based drivers from countries and continents across the world, are united in our fight for justice & fairness for transport workers and elevate driver voice throughout the world.

Whereas: 

• App-based transportation companies (TNCs)  like Uber, Lyft, Didi, Gojek, Ola, Via, Grab, PassApp, Taxify, and others are promoting a race to the bottom and destroying labour standards across the world, while charging customers exorbitant fares, engaging in predatory trade and business practices, creating traffic congestion, and contributing to climate change;
  
  

• Governments - municipal, state, and national - have consistently undermined efforts to execute their responsibility to regulate these industries;
  
  

• App-based drivers across the world struck together on May 8, 2019, ahead of Uber’s IPO in twenty-five cities spanning five continents. In so doing drivers were successful in spotlighting the exploitation and devastating working conditions drivers endure globally;
  
  

• App-based drivers have now come together as a broad, global alliance to sustain, coordinate, and organise world-wide to stop TNCs from their exploitative and harmful practices, and to improve the lives and professions of drivers all over the world.

We believe that fairness and respect for our profession includes:

• The right to Universal Labour Guarantees- no misclassification by TNCs to avoid labour standards will be tolerated;
  
  

• Guarantees and practices to ensure safety - including adequate training - and security on the job;
  
  

• The protection of flexibility, including being able to work when we desire, the right to be able to work  for multiple companies;

• The right to individual and collective control to all our personal data at work and the right to transparency of algorithmic decision-making;

•  The right to protection of our privacy at work including strict & transparent limitations on workplace surveillance, release of our data to third parties and to control how and where our data is stored;
  
  

• The right for all drivers to form democratic, accountable, & driver-led unions to secure legally enforceable collective bargaining agreements, and to be free from intimidation or deactivation in organising for rights and contracts;
  
  

• Fair pay, including:

  • A cap on fare commissions collected by companies;

  • Fair per mile/per minute minimum fares;

  • An hourly pay guarantee aligned with fair and living wages in the areas where we work, with all hours while app on considered paid hours;

  • Expenses incurred from operating vehicles reimbursed, or otherwise paid, including either the cost of operating our vehicles or leasing one;

  • A cap on the number of vehicles and drivers in the regions we work - important to driver earning potential as well as carbon emissions standards;

  • Compensation in the form of benefits for our labour, including health, unemployment benefits, coverage for injury on the job, and pension/retirement.
    
    

• Transparency for all rules impacting drivers’ profession, including:

• An appeals process for deactivation, including the opportunity for a hearing conducted by a neutral party approved by drivers, that includes transparent sharing of rules and information on the deactivation, and guarantees a just cause standard for any termination, including protecting drivers from passenger and company discrimination for minorities, women, and disabled drivers;

• Transparency on fares, payments and bonuses for every ride; 

• Transparency on algorithms that control our ability to earn and work, including bonuses.
  
  

• Enforcement of community standards that include 

  • Regulations related to congestion, and 

  • Support for ensuring carbon zero impact of TNCs.

We share these principles and beliefs:

• That any of our organising work serves to raise standards and working conditions for all transport workers;
  
  

• That app-based work is skilled work - and as drivers we are transportation workers, creating valuable labour, and deserve the rights of all transportation workers;
  
  

• That all workers - including app-deployed workers - deserve fair wages, the right to organise and be  legally recognized as a union, and a real voice on the job, and we reject the company and state union model where companies or the state dominate and/or fund the organisation;

• That our diversity and our many voices are a source of power, and by respecting and including our diversity in every aspect of our organising is critical to winning justice for drivers, that within our own organisation and the industry, we will ensure inclusion and leadership of people of color, women, and other marginalized sectors of the working class;
  
  

• That we strive for increased driver control of industry TNCs to support and grow worker self-reliance;
  
  

• That our struggle is connected to many other struggles of working people of all genders, cultures, and races for liberation and justice, and to the struggle to create a better world currently threatened by climate change  and corporate greed;
  
  

• The heart of winning power is driver-led, mass organisations, where drivers are in control of the decision-making;
  
  

• While we recognize that legally-sanctioned labour standards vary across different countries, we collectively work towards the Universal Labour Guarantees for all transportation workers.
  
  

We stand united in our fight as drivers and workers all over the world as we found our International Alliance of App-Based Transportation Workers. We stand together and commit to supporting one another in our struggles! And we stand together to fight for app-based workers until we win!