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Transportation United States

Uber Connects Out-of-Work U.S. Ride-Hail Drivers To Delivery, Production Jobs (reuters.com) 18

Uber said on Monday its app will list job openings in the delivery, food production and grocery industry that its U.S. drivers can access during a slump in ride-hailing demand due to the coronavirus. From a report: Beginning on Monday, drivers can find job listings of other companies in a new section of their app, Uber said in a blog post. Uber also said it would reach out to the more than 240,000 of its registered drivers holding commercial licenses to connect them to logistics companies for employment and contract opportunities. It also encouraged drivers to sign up for its Uber Eats food delivery service, saying restaurant orders have seen a significant increase since mid-March. Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement the company will keep expanding economic opportunities in coming months by using technology to create fast and flexible access to work.
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Uber Connects Out-of-Work U.S. Ride-Hail Drivers To Delivery, Production Jobs

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  • Just curious how many folks out there are confident enough in everyone in the food chain for delivery items to be meticulous enough to keep things clean to prevent transmission of covid 19?

    I mean, so many people handling the food from prep, to cook to package.....to handover to deliver person to you.

    I dunno....while I'm craving a delivery pizza, for about a month now, I've kinda gone with the thought of that "if I don't cook it....I"m not eating it..."

    What are ya'lls thoughts?

    • What are ya'lls thoughts?

      I love pizza as much as any other Slashdotter, but we make our own [kingarthurflour.com] at home. Get a pizza stone for you oven and your results will improve greatly, even for grocery store frozen pizza. But honestly, my first thought was "Wow, Uber is opening a market for slave trading."

      • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        What are ya'lls thoughts?

        I love pizza as much as any other Slashdotter, but we make our own [kingarthurflour.com] at home.

        I just throw sauce, cheese, and toppings on a low cal tortilla and stick it under the broiler until the cheese and edges of the tortilla brown. Perfectly sized personal pizza in about 5-6 minutes.

      • I love pizza as much as any other Slashdotter, but we make our own [kingarthurflour.com] at home. Get a pizza stone for you oven and your results will improve greatly, even for grocery store frozen pizza. But honestly, my first thought was "Wow, Uber is opening a market for slave trading."

        Oh, I'm quite adept at making pizza from scratch , no only dough, but also sauce.

        But of late, I've gone low carb and haven't been doing flour for awhile.

        I've mastered the fathead pizza crust that works well....but I'm

        • You can use cauliflower for a low carb pizza crust as well. It works pretty well as a rice substitute as well. There are plenty of different recipes online, but they're all pretty simple. I prefer using goat cheese over mozzarella for making pizza crust with it.
          • You can use cauliflower for a low carb pizza crust as well.

            I tried a number of variations of the cauliflower crusts for pizza, and just could never quite get it right...I couldn't get it thin enough, and/or it would end up with a burned taste whenever I got it cooked well enough to act like a pizza crust and be firm enough to hold a slice up with one hand...etc.

            I'm also trying to incorporate using a pizza stone or steel with non-flour based crusts.

            So far the "fathead" version with basically mixing mozzar

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Personally, I just don't want to add 20-30% of the food price in delivery fees and tips. If I'm just going to get something to go, I'll go pick it up myself and leave a tip there for the staff they've kept. Nowhere I'm getting food from is more than 5-10 minutes away and not worth adding $8-10 to stay home. Plus, easier to stick to my diet when cooking at home.

      • Where do you live where it costs $8 to get a pizza delivered?

        • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

          Where do you live where it costs $8 to get a pizza delivered?

          Any takeout around here usually adds $3-4 delivery charge (precovid-19, a lot of places are doing free delivery right now but you know it will go back), plus $3-4 tip.

    • lack of commercial auto insurance is a big issue that can leave the 3rd party victim left holding the bag.

      personal car insurance policys don't cover a pizza driver an knowing uber the drivers will be 1099'er unlike pizza places where they are W2 workers.

    • In the reporting I saw prior to the pandemic, surveys of delivery drivers showed that half of them admit to having eaten some of the food they're delivering. The actual number may well be much higher. There's no way I'd trust them, especially so during this time.

      My wife mentioned seeing a post on NextDoor last week that basically involved a man in our neighborhood seeing a delivery driver pull up to a restaurant, receive the food they'd be delivering without wearing gloves or a mask (which is disappointing,

    • I think professional food handlers are generally well-trained and reasonably competent. In this environment, I think they are all extremely attentive to the impact of their food handling.

      On the other hand, the people you meet in the grocery store...

  • Uber's drivers aren't employees, and don't get any health care coverage... but Uber will happily connect them to service jobs where they can be exposed to more infection opportunities!

    There's a point where a company stops being merely willfully ignorant of its workers' wellbeing, and starts actively causing harm. I think Uber's passed that point.

    • Uber's drivers aren't employees, and don't get any health care coverage... but Uber will happily connect them to service jobs where they can be exposed to more infection opportunities!

      Well, some of these Uber drivers, are not educated or whatever, enough to computer driven work from home jobs.

      The only jobs really out there ARE the service jobs, like grocery stores, food delivery, etc....

      If those are the only choices...where do you propose Uber try to help the less talented workers to get work?

  • It has already been eating into bricks and mortar for decades, but this pandemic is just the big push it needs to become the only way the vast majority of people actually want to purchase goods and services going forward.

    Won't speak to risk (for drivers or customers), but delivery drivers are going to be one job that will probably always be available. Until the robots, but that is for another thread.

    • It has already been eating into bricks and mortar for decades, but this pandemic is just the big push it needs to become the only way the vast majority of people actually want to purchase goods and services going forward.

      If I was food service or bartender, I would NOT be anxious to move away from cash.

      I mean, you have to declare x% of your sales (I don't know what it is currently, but was like 10% or so back in my day) as tipped income.

      So, realistically, if you got all cash, you didn't have to declare fo

  • It should be obvious that the only motivation for Uber to do this is to make their app more of a platform for services. If Uber is a platform of services then the drivers are not employees. If Uber is a car service only then the drivers are employees. Uber wants good news about how Uber is so helpful during hard times, its just a veil to cover how badly they treat drivers.

The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh

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