The New York City-based ride-hailing app Juno was widely marketed as a different type of platform — one that values its drivers. The company went as far as to say that it would give equity to its drivers. However, in an unexpected turn of events, Juno announced in April that it was being acquired by ride-hailing platform Gett for $200 million. Apparently, in the end, profits took precedence over ethics.
“I had seen Juno as part of the platform cooperativism movement — a recognition that co-ownership matters in the online economy,” said Nathan Schneider, a journalist and a scholar-in-residence of media studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “It was part of the Internet of Ownership directory, at least until this buyout was announced.”
Drivers had no say in the matter, despite their supposed stake in the company, and have seen little of that $200 million. In fact, drivers are being given paltry allowances for their shares. Juno’s acquisition shows that for drivers and workers to be a genuine part of the gig economy, there needs to be meaningful action to share ownership and decision-making from the get-go — and a platform cooperative or nonprofit model is one way to ensure that.
Empty Words
On the surface, promises to give equity to drivers sounds meaningful, especially when compared to the blatant, race-to-the-bottom cutting of wages by other ride-hailing companies. It makes it sound as if drivers would own Juno. Obviously, that was not the case, as drivers, even those with substantial shares, had no say in the decision by Juno’s owners to sell the company to Gett.
“If we’re to embrace these schemes, we need to be forthright about what they represent,” Schneider says. “Without real worker power in the mix, it’s too easy for companies like Juno to go back on their promises.”
The company has said little since news of the acquisition was made, with no updates on its social media channels as of publication, and attempts by Shareable to reach both Juno and Gett received no responses.
The Meaning of “Equity”
Juno’s model was curious from the start. On paper, it wasn’t that different from Uber or Lyft’s model. It was registered as a regular, for-profit company, accepted venture capital funding, and used several of the same marketing techniques — including promo codes and subsidized pricing. What was different was the promise — to treat drivers better and give them equity in the company. But as we’ve learned, the company ended up shortchanging its drivers.
The Independent Drivers Guild, a group that advocates for the estimated 50,000 ride-hailing drivers in New York City, has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission “for deliberately and egregiously misleading both current and prospective Juno drivers with false claims that drivers would share in Juno’s success.”
Democratic Ownership Models Matter
If Juno has been a genuine platform cooperative, or a nonprofit like the RideAustin based in Austin, Texas, then such a sudden sale would not have been possible. That’s because in a cooperative, all driver-owners have a say in decision-making, and all decisions are made democratically and transparently, not behind closed doors as what happened with Juno and Gett.
“Actual ownership is critical. Not a ‘sense of ownership,’ not an intention to distribute ownership, but actual legal ownership,” says Alanna Irving, co-founder of the Loomio Cooperative based in New Zealand. “Otherwise the incentives will always be against cooperative values and practices.”
Real shares rather than Restricted Stock Units would have given Juno’s drivers more power and more say in the company’s operations. But what would have been even better is a true platform cooperative model, which would be transformative for the ride-hailing industry.
“A genuine platform co-op model… I suspect, would be quite different from either Juno or Uber — cooperation simply doesn’t require the monopolization that they seek,” Schneider says. “I imagine, rather, a network of local driver cooperatives that share an open-source software infrastructure, enabling users to access to local driver co-ops on the same app, wherever they go.”
In fact, this news is giving momentum to the need for stronger protections for drivers in the gig economy.
“This latest bait-and-switch underscores the need for industry-wide protections to ensure a living wage for drivers in the face of deceptive tactics, empty promises and manipulation from ride-hail apps,” Ryan Price, executive director of the Independent Drivers Guild, said in a statement.
While Juno may no longer be an ethical alternative to Uber or Lyft, it does not mean there are no alternatives. We’ve highlighted several alternatives here. Moreover, LibreTaxi, an open-source platform that directly connects drivers and passengers, is seeing rapid growth in users and could — with time — become a genuine, community-driven alternative.
This article originally appeared on Shareable.net.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy