HI Joe,
Thanks for an early chuckle on a warm but windy day here on the Great
Olympic Peninsula.
Trade Secret, is it? Poor Uber. Surely they must know that their so
called Trade Secret is the age old, worn out exploitation of hard
working men and women. Contract Labor is the favorite method of our
Out-of-control Corporate Capitalism to suck up some more of our hard
earned money.
What a win/win deal for the boss!
All risk, all expenses, and all responsibility is placed squarely on
the backs of those doing all the labor. I've heard the Uber ads
proclaiming that if you have a car, you can make a thousand dollars a
week. How many out of work, desperate people will jump at such an
offer? Back when I was young it was the door to door vacuum cleaner
companies and other companies such as encyclopedias and magazines,
sweet talking unemployed, desperate people into the false hope of
earning a living. But as long as Labor Unions continued to be strong
and support their members, such slimy methods of exploitation were
kept to a minimum. Today's world has been swamped by the "Right to
Work", mentality. Unions have become labeled as Evil. "Pull yourself
up by your own boot straps. Rags to riches. The Self-made
man/woman". Meanwhile Corporate Barons such as the upstart Uber, roam
the land like giant predators. Why do we keep buying into the belief
that we need some bloated corporate head in order to have a job?
Can't the Uber approach work as well if it were owned and operated by
the drivers and those support workers?
We need to begin working together. Forget the bad name socialism has
been given by Corporate Capitalism, United Workers means a dignified
living. It's time we kicked the drones out of the bee hive. Or
cleared the Foxes out of our Hen Houses.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/17/15, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Judge Says Uber Should Be Fined and Suspended for Failure to Turn Over
Rideshare Data
Posted By
Jeremy Lybarger
on Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 9:24 AM
JOONAS TIKKANEN/FLICKR
List of 1 items
• Joonas Tikkanen/Flickr
list end
Yesterday was a tough one for Uber. The California Public Utilities
Commission
ruled
that the rideshare giant should be fined $7.3 million and suspended from
operating in California for failure to demonstrate compliance with the
American
with Disabilities Act, as well as failure to release data indicating how
well the company serves diverse neighborhoods.
According to CPUC judge Karen V. Clopton, Uber has never turned over
information pertaining to its “efforts to date for accommodating visually
impaired,
persons with service animals, and persons requiring a wheelchair accessible
vehicle.” When CPUC requested data about passengers with disabilities, “no
actual data was provided” by Uber, according to the ruling.
Nor did the company provide data about which zip codes it serves or its
driver safety numbers. This isn’t surprising given Uber’s
general secrecy
about how it operates — a reticence the company claims is a trade secret.
The CPUC doesn't buy that. “A trade secret claim cannot be used as a shield
to
deny access to the very regulatory agency that has ordered the information’s
creation and compilation," the ruling reads.
According to the
Los Angeles Times,
the CPUC’s ruling won’t go into effect for 30 days, and Uber will have a
chance to appeal. A $7.3 million fine is less than one percent of the $5.9
billion
in venture capital that Uber has raised.
In related news, officials at LAX will determine today whether rideshare
companies will be allowed to
operate at the airport.
If approved, L.A. would become the largest city in America to grant such
permission.
Source:
http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/07/16/judge-says-uber-should-be-fined-and-suspended-for-failure-to-turn-over-rideshare-data
