Hyderabad, May 22 (Agency) The Telangana Gig and Platforms Workers Union (TGPWU) on Saturday demanded that the fare should be hiked based on the fuel prices of each city. In a release, TGPWU state founder President and Indian Federation of App Based Transport Workers (IFAT) National General Secretary Shaik Salauddin said that Uber, for coming up with these changes, but these changes are not same for all the cities or all the drivers who are working for it. The “independent” Driver Advisory Council (DAC) is nothing but a well-practiced ploy to set up an illegal company union that Uber has been doing all across the world, he said TGPWU was founded in 2019 and has done everything from grassroots led strikes to filing a writ petition in the supreme Court on behalf of our members.
The decisions taken in consultation with the DAC are a sham, he said that we demand that the rates that are fixed by the state government be implemented immediately. It’s the same with the claim for providing the trip information to the drivers. It kicks in only when 5 trips have been completed by the drivers. The stipulation for completion of rides for accessing information on the upcoming ride should be removed, the drivers should be able to know if they are accepting a safe trip or not,” the union’s president said. The changes made by Uber included increased fares, but that these could not be uniform for all cities, Salauddin said since fuel prices varied from city to city and each city should have a different tariff system. The drivers are complaining that they are not being paid for their “dry runs” either to pick up the customer or if they are stuck outside the city after completing their ride, he said the payments for these long distances travelled have still not been compensated by Uber in our city. With long winded routes being allocated on the map these trips burn excess fuel but still reflect the minimum fares determined by Uber ignoring the time, effort and fuel invested by the drivers, he said. “The demands are for fare rates in proportionate to the fuel rates in their city, access to information on the trip sans the mandatory regulations, compensation for dry runs and roll back on back-to-back trips being dumped on them continuously”, the President added.
In a separate release, the union also urged the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) consider drivers as consumers of Ola and Uber and to take action against Ola and Uber on their complaints. Ola and Uber have also deemed the drivers to be users of their apps for service, so even though drivers are consumers of Ola and Uber, he said the drivers also face the same problems like the riders as a consumer are facing. Deficiency in service, which includes lack of proper response from customer support, customer/riders refusing to acknowledge the fare determined by Ola and Uber app, lower amount charged despite going on the same route determined by the app, no safeguard against assault by the customer on a ride and loss of property and also danger to life, said Salauddin. Unreasonable levy of penalties and deductions, wherein the drivers are not informed why these penalties or deductions have been made on their earnings, he said. The undue penalties and deductions are borne by the drivers based on arbitrary ratings, non-transparent complaints with one sided decision making by the companies, he alleged.