Hello. I am an UBER Eats driver who believes that I am being exploited by UBER, who only pays us, drivers, for the time we are on delivery.

For those who do not know, UBER drivers start working by pressing a button that puts us online. When you are online you make no money When you accept a delivery, you are now active until you complete it. As a part-time driver time, active hours/delivery payments don't reach minimum wage, so under Prop 22, Uber must round it up. (Note: tips are not included in the count.) This only includes the money we make from the delivery fee itself. 

Uber should include a percentage of online time for the good faith drivers who need this job. It is ridiculous that an hour of my labor goes completely unpaid by Uber.

Recently more drivers have been joining so trips have been more scarce. This means you likely will be waiting for twenty to thirty minutes until you get another delivery, which has happened to me every night this past week. This time that I am waiting in my car, or even driving around to find an area that might have more deliveries is completely unpaid, despite all my attention is on working. Uber should be required to reimburse a calculated percentage of our online time, based on active time and how many trips we take. In California, UBER already rounds up our active time to reach the minimum wage. I think that a portion of online time should factor into that as well.

UBER likely has not implemented this yet because "drivers" can take advantage of the system. However, you can calculate a ratio of active vs. online time. I usually have anywhere between thirty minutes to an hour of online time I am not being paid for. It is clear to see if someone is doing it to exploit the system that protects actual workers. Their ratios will be far bigger, and that's if they even have taken deliveries. 

It would not hurt uber to pay us an extra half of the state's minimum wage a day. It is anxiety-inducing waiting in a parking lot for thirty minutes, wondering if the time I'm spending is going to waste and if I'm even going to get another delivery. Driving around makes it worse because you are wasting gas, which we go through so fast. I visit the gas station almost every day, and I work less than twenty hours a week.

I will not lie, Uber is a much better job when it comes to stress than most other retail or food service jobs out there, but with gas prices and the lack of trips, we have lately been receiving. We are being paid less than minimum wage and that is not right.

Uber, please figure this out and help the drivers that keep your company afloat. Our time is limited and our labor should not be free and taken for granted.