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“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
This quote, attributed to Albert Einstein and thought to be a reference to the horrors of the atom bomb, is the subject of much dispute.
Many argue that Einstein never uttered these words.
But just because the author is the subject of dispute, doesn’t make the message any less worthy of reflection. Especially in 2017, where all around us technology props up our daily lives.
I believe that technology is essentially neutral; it’s what humans do with it that can become ethical or unethical.
As celebrated cyberpunk author William Gibson wrote in the Paris Review in 2011, the strongest impacts of an emergent technology are always unanticipated.
“You can’t know what people are going to do until they get their hands on it and start using it on a daily basis, using it to make a buck and using it for criminal purposes and all the different things that people do,” wrote Gibson. “The people who invented pagers, for instance, never imagined that they would change the shape of urban drug dealing all over the world.”
It was a few days before Christmas when I found myself being taken through Johannesburg’s deserted streets in an Uber car.
I started up a casual conversation with the driver by asking him how the annual pilgrimage away from Johannesburg in December was affecting his work.
“It’s so quiet,” he said, explaining that he had to work three to four times the number of hours he did when Johannesburg was fully populated.
Then he told me that his boss doesn’t understand this and won’t let him stop working until he had met his quota.
I was intrigued. As we chatted it emerged that his boss owned the car and was paying him to use it as an Uber driver. And that his boss was paying him R600 for every R3?000 he was bringing in.
I was outraged.
He told me the only reason he was still doing the job was because he needed that R600 and couldn’t find anything better.
A pure fiction
How was this level of exploitation going on under Uber’s nose, you may ask?
Well, Uber doesn’t consider its drivers as employees, but as independent contractors. The transportation disruptor has gone to great lengths to prevent its drivers from being classified as employees, as an internet search will reveal.
For example, in January Uber appealed a ruling by Swiss insurance agency Suva which classified Uber drivers as employees and made Uber liable for social security contributions.
A similar ruling by a UK employment tribunal in October 2016, found that Uber drivers bringing a claim were employees, rather than freelance contractors.
The tribunal referred to Uber’s view of its relationship with its drivers as freelance contractors as “a pure fiction, which bears no relation to the real dealings and relationships between the parties”.
How will the ruling affect Uber drivers in the UK? Well, drivers will now receive holiday pay, paid rest breaks and get paid the national minimum wage.
Not surprisingly, Uber is appealing.
In Russia it has been reported that a number of Uber drivers have quit after the company tried to pass on a newly introduced 18% VAT on internet goods and services on to its drivers.
Some critics argue that Uber is essentially asking its Russian drivers to become tax agents for a multinational company.
Meanwhile, after a legal challenge in Spain, the issue of whether Uber is a transportation service or a digital platform has been referred to the European Court of Justice, which is set to rule this year.
Across the Atlantic, Uber driver Jorge Washington, who was injured on the job and does not have health insurance, has taken Uber to the New York State Workers Compensation Board. Uber is arguing that Washington state labour laws can’t protect the driver. The board is expected to rule on this case in late February.
But let’s bring this back to the Johannesburg Uber driver in December 2016. On that day I tipped the Uber driver more than the entire fare. I didn’t do it because I felt sorry for him, I didn’t do it because I was feeling generous. I did it because sitting in his car in December, being driven across Johannesburg, I realised that as a consumer, I too was complicit in his exploitation. And I was not prepared to be party to another situation where technology was being used to ride roughshod over our ethics, our morals and our humanity.
This article originally appeared in the 2 February edition of finweek. Buy and download the magazine here.
