As if Uber’s recent initial public offering didn’t go bad enough, now bleeding heart socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is taking aim at the ride-hailing giant over, of all things, its bathroom policy.
No, it’s not over a universal men’s/women’s/trans bathroom where everyone just goes wherever they want (because who needs genders?). Sarcasm aside, the bathrooms already are non-gender specific, but what has AOC all fired up rather is the fact that Uber has different bathrooms for full-time employees and drivers at the company’s offices, which Ocasio-Cortez deems classist.
The backstory: An Uber driver, Erika Betts, visited one of the company’s offices in Providence, Rhode Island, and tweeted a photo of the two different bathrooms Wednesday. One was for “partners,” meaning drivers, and one was for “employees.”
Of course, Uber doesn’t call its gig-worker drivers employees because they aren’t … full-time employees, but more like independent contractors, which is the subject of much hand-wringing in places like California.
Uber confirmed the separate bathrooms and apologized for not being politically correct enough via statement.
“This was a mistake and we regret it. We are removing the signs and have made it clear that this was not appropriate,” a company spokesperson said.
Siri, show me what classism looks like: https://t.co/vUM7Fe7tJz
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 5, 2019
This occurred at Uber’s Rhode Island office, home of the company’s Greenlight Hubs, which are places where drivers can sign up, get information and support in a more face-to-face setting.
“I feel the bathroom division is obscure and uncalled for,” Betts, the driver, told Vice’s Motherboard in an interview. “I feel the company’s driver support system is laughable at best … . The Greenlight Hub is the best option drivers have, despite the limited authority provided by the hub representatives.”
The @Uber hub in my market has designated bathrooms. Not for male/female, but for partner & employee.
Anyone else think it’s strange that Uber views partners & employees as two separate classes of people? pic.twitter.com/3SGeKSae3g— Erika Betts (@ErikaABetts) December 4, 2019
Ultimately, it seems to me (in case anyone was asking) that having separate bathrooms — aside for men and women — is silly. What purpose does that serve other than to alienate?
But also, why is this something people are fighting over? Check the replies on AOC’s tweet and everyone is crushing Uber for basically being fascists over a bathroom policy that may or may not even be an actual policy. The PC police are out in force and it’s ridiculous.
There are far more important things facing Uber, like the company’s godawful valuation. Uber planned to sell 180 million shares for between $44 and $50, raising about $9 billion.
That was at the end of April.
By IPO day on May 10, it started trading at $42 per share, 7% below its IPO price, raising $8.1 billion instead.
Here we are seven months later, and Uber’s shares now sit at $28.44 each as of 3 p.m. EST, down 2% for the day and a whopping 37% on the year.
Uber has much bigger problems than the complaints of social justice warriors like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her legion of leftist fanboys and fangirls.