Uber, Lyft Strike Lands A Blow, Advocate Says

NEW YORK — The Wednesday morning strike that briefly took many Uber and Lyft drivers offline successfully sent a messasge to the ride-hailing firms, a leading driver advocate said.

The two-hour strike by the city's app-based drivers was among several work stoppages in at least 10 American cities to make demands of Uber ahead of the ride-hailing giant's initial public offering, which is reportedly set for Friday.

"(T)housands" of app drivers participated in the strike and some drivers reported that Uber was proffering hefty pay incentives Wednesday morning, said Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which spearheaded the stoppage.

"(W)e know the strike had an impact," Desai said in a statement. "Drivers know the power of our collective labor. And this is just the beginning!"

But Uber says the strike did not significantly affect wait times and other aspects of its service. Only about 500 fewer drivers were online Wednesday morning compared to last week, the company said, which amounts to less than 1% of the more than 120,000 app-based drivers in the city.

"Drivers are at the heart of our service, and we can’t succeed without them," Uber spokesman Harry Hartfield said in a statement. "We’ll continue working to improve drivers’ experience for and with them, every day."

Wednesday's stoppage marked the first global strike against Uber and Lyft, Desai said. The Independent Drivers Guild, a labor group for app drivers, also led a procession of cars over the Brooklyn Bridge in a show of protest.

The actions followed the city's landmark freeze on most new for-hire vehicles and the establishment of a pay floor for app-based drivers.

Among the drivers' demands was that Uber, Lyft and other companies give drivers a larger share of the fares that passengers pay and stop unfairly deactivating drivers, which prevents them from earning a living.

"It takes so much courage for working people to go out on strike," Desai said at a Wednesday rally, according to a video published by amNewYork. "It is a sacrifice no matter what length of time you do it for. It's an act of hope, it's an act of resilience, it's (an) act of consciousness and it's a force of power and it's a force of unity."

Lyft, which went public in March, recently sued the city over its minimum-pay rules for drivers. But the company said that its drivers earn more than $20 an hour on average and their hourly earnings have risen 7% over the last two years.

"We know that access to flexible, extra income makes a big difference for millions of people, and we’re constantly working to improve how we can best serve our driver community," Lyft said in a statement.