The former chief lobbyist who exposed Uber’s illegalities shed light on the ride service’s questionable ways of treating its drivers in the European Parliament on Tuesday.
Ride service Uber’s business model is based on the fact that someone has to lose, says the American company’s former chief lobbyist and whistleblower.
Uber’s former head of public relations Mark McGann was heard by the European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
In the summer, MacGann leaked tens of thousands of documents to the British newspaper The Guardian, which revealed the company’s extensive lobbying activities and practices that knowingly violated the taxi laws of the time.
The whistleblower shed light on Uber’s questionable ways of treating the company’s drivers at the hearing of the European Parliament.
“We told the drivers that they can earn thousands of euros a month and have a decent standard of living. And be your own boss at the same time. It never happened. For the business model to succeed, someone had to suffer,” MacGann said in his speech, which several MEPs praised as impressive.
MacGann told the members of the European Parliament that when Uber started its operations, the company treated the drivers driving the rides it brokered as “backbones” and “heroes”.
“We gave the drivers expensive iPhones and bonuses. If they didn’t have a vehicle, we negotiated contracts with banks, car companies and insurance companies.”
However, the treatment of drivers changed, according to MacGann, after lawsuits were filed against Uber drivers who evaded the law.
Uber’s legal department came up with the idea that drivers should start being called “driver partners”, which is how many other so-called platform companies call employees who use their apps. Uber’s lobbying department urged to talk about the work as a “financial opportunity”.
“The lawsuits forced us into an exhausting linguistic and semantic struggle. Under no circumstances was anyone allowed to talk about work”.
MacGann worked as a lobbyist for Uber for several years, during which the company aggressively expanded into new countries. When Uber was expanding to new cities, the company subsidized drivers’ rides generously.
When we got to the market, the support ended. After that, the company introduced, among other things, a security and service fee.
“I estimate that none of that revenue stream went to the drivers,” MacGann said.
Uber also had a controversial attitude towards the drivers’ desire to form a trustee. According to MacGann, company representatives created secret profiles in Facebook and Whatsapp groups to spy on drivers, and the company even inquired about the activities of existing taxi unions. The company had a “massive” security department.
“In the US and Europe, we paid security companies, private investigators and former intelligence service employees to investigate taxi organizations. At that time, we tended to look into people’s trash cans,” MacGann answered a question from one MEP.
MacGann also told the MEPs about Uber’s powerful lobbying machinery. According to MacGann, the company had “limitless” resources available.
In 2015-16 alone, the company spent a total of US$19 million on advocacy, lobbying and communications worldwide.
MacGann’s information leak about Uber covers the years 2013–2017. Uber has admitted that it made mistakes in previous years and has said that it is a different company today.
The Uber whistleblower was asked if Uber still continues its illegal practices. MacGann replied that he couldn’t say, but emphasized that the company once had a practically unlimited lobbying budget.
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