Smoke from burning tires rose into the air. As tempers flared outside the blocked Orly airport, someone was hit by a minibus. Nearly two dozen taxi drivers were arrested for offenses ranging from assault to arson. In Lille, an Uber driver was punched in the face after dropping off a customer – or “rider” as the company calls him – at a hotel. Similar violent incidents occurred in Toulouse, Marseille and Aix-en-Provence. After midnight, an Uber manager in France filed a status report. “Team – all safe. Drivers/riders – generally safe, although 53 incidents so far, including 35 involving a rider,” he wrote. “Three relatively serious cases involving violence in taxis, including one car with serious damage and two drivers being beaten.” Taxi drivers demonstrate blocking traffic in Paris in 2016. Photo: Aurélien Meunier/Getty Images The “team” – Uber’s direct employees – was, indeed, safe. They had been told to avoid showing off Uber swag in public and to work out of the office during the protest, with operations being run from a remote emergency room. With the strike continuing for a second day, “a lot of security” had been hired, the French manager assured HQ. Q&A
What are Uber records?
projection The Uber Files is a global investigation based on a trove of 124,000 documents leaked to the Guardian. The data consists of emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the top executives of the Silicon Valley giant, as well as memos, presentations, notebooks, briefing documents and invoices. The leaked records cover 40 countries and span from 2013 to 2017, the period when Uber was aggressively expanding around the world. They reveal how the company broke the law, deceived police and regulators, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments around the world. To facilitate a global public interest investigation, the Guardian shared the data with 180 journalists in 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The investigation was managed and led by the Guardian with the ICIJ. In a statement, Uber said: “We have not and will not condone past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values. Instead, we’re asking the public to judge us based on what we’ve done in the last five years and what we’ll do in the years to come.” Thanks for your response. Uber drivers, however, had no such protection. Within hours, they would be back on the front lines of France’s taxi wars. Uber did not count them as employees. According to Uber’s records, some at the company appear to have seen positive results in the attacks against drivers. When attacks occurred, Uber moved quickly to leverage violence in a campaign to pressure governments to rewrite laws that hindered Uber’s chances of expansion. We maintain the narrative of violence for a few days before offering the solution. Uber manager It was a book repeated in Italy, Belgium, Holland, Spain and Switzerland, but was perhaps most prominent in France. Before dawn in Europe on January 29, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was sending messages about how best to respond to the chaos in Paris. “Political disobedience,” Kalanick fired back in a quick burst of messages. “Fifteen thousand drivers… 50,000 riders… Peaceful march or sit-in.” Uber’s vice president of communications, Rachel Whetstone, responded cautiously, noting that Uber’s head of public policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Mark MacGann, was “concerned about taxi violence” against Uber drivers. Travis Kalanick speaking to students in Mumbai, India in 2016. Photo: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters Whetstone added that taxi drivers’ unions are “being taken over by far-right relaxation for a fight”. “Someone think hard,” he said. MacGann chimed in, suggesting that the French team would “look at effective civil disobedience while keeping people safe.” Kalanick’s surprisingly candid response indicated he believed any further problems could benefit Uber in its ongoing battle with the French government. “If we have 50,000 riders they won’t and can’t do anything,” he wrote. “I think it’s worth it. Guarantee of violence[s] success. And these guys are to be resisted, no? I agree that the right place and time should be considered.” A former senior Uber executive who was present at the time recalled feeling Kalanick’s directive was part of a broader strategic push by the company to “arm drivers” and support the lobbying push by keeping “the fire of controversy” alive. . In a statement, Kalanick’s spokesman disputed the authenticity of some of the documents. He said Kalanick “never suggested that Uber should exploit violence at the expense of driver safety” and any suggestion that he engaged in such activity would be completely false. Following Kalanick’s message, an Uber team in Europe began preparing an action plan for the week ahead. Drivers were urged to sign letters organized by Uber to the French president and prime minister to save their jobs. a mass passenger petition was organized to defend cheap rides. A demonstration was planned, ostensibly by an independent drivers’ union – actually run by Uber. Behind the scenes, executives of the taxi app determined the time and place of the demonstration and wrote a full-page manifesto to the French media. News reports say only a few hundred drivers showed up. French riot police push an overturned car as striking French taxi drivers protest in Paris, June 2015. Photo: Charles Platiau/Reuters Violence against Uber drivers and customers was by no means unique to France. The company has often rolled into new markets in defiance of local regulations, using billions of dollars in venture capital to fund massive subsidies that undermine local traditional taxis, prompting furious backlash. MacGann had chronicled the violence across Europe in an email to San Francisco a year before the Paris protests. He wrote in January 2015 that in France alone “80 drivers [have been] were physically assaulted, more than 10 ended up in the hospital, depriving them of their incomes… Dozens of cars were destroyed.” A man who tried to take an Uber after a taxi driver told him he was on strike “got the crap out of him” and needed facial reconstruction surgery. There was “increasing and credible information of taxi entrapment and ambushing of Uber drivers,” MacGann wrote. The boss of Uber in Italy had been “constantly attacked physically and verbally”. In Spain, MacGann reported “months of cars burning and drivers being beaten … managers often demand bodyguards when they speak in public.” Over time, Uber drivers have been attacked in dozens of countries and even murdered by taxi drivers in South Africa, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Hundreds of students take part in a protest march against the killing of three students and an Uber driver in Mexico in March 2020. Photo: Imelda Medina/Reuters The attacks posed an obvious challenge for Uber, discouraging people from driving for the platform. On the other hand, some at the company seemed to think it benefited Uber. As a senior communications manager in Europe succinctly emailed on August 24, 2015 after violent taxi protests against Uber drivers in Belgium: “Violence in France has led to regulatory momentum.” At times, the scenario went like this: an Uber driver is beaten, stabbed or otherwise assaulted by taxi drivers. managers at an Uber office in the country are alerting the national media in hopes of free anti-taxi publicity. lobbyists are taking advantage of the incident to secure meetings with ministers and government officials and push for favorable legislation. In 2015, after Brussels taxi drivers organized to attack Uber drivers, the company’s general manager in Belgium remarked: “Already one driver came forward to speak to the press: he had a full sack of flour thrown at him and taxi passengers . He pressed charges and a taxi driver would have spent a night in jail… Good story.” Similarly, after a Belgian Uber driver’s car was attacked by taxi drivers and his wing mirror smashed, one of the company’s senior internal lobbyists urged colleagues: “We have to use this to our advantage.” A similar approach was taken in the Netherlands in March 2015, when masked men, reported to be angry taxi drivers, cornered Uber drivers with dusters and a hammer. Uber employees exchanged emails about a strategy of using violence to win concessions from the Dutch government. Victim drivers were encouraged to file police reports, which were shared with De Telegraaf, the leading Dutch daily newspaper. “They will be published without our fingerprint on the front page tomorrow,” wrote one manager on March 16. The documents suggest executives were willing to let the violence continue for a while to put pressure on the government before the company presented a plan that would allow it to temporarily circumvent the regulations. “We’re keeping the narrative of violence going for a few days before we offer the solution,” the manager wrote. When this narrative materialized in the Dutch press, MacGann responded: “Great job. This is exactly what we wanted and the timing is perfect.” Forwarding subsequent news coverage to other executives, he remarked: “First step in the campaign, get the media to talk about the violence against taxis.” Uber’s David Plouffe speaks after a roundtable lunch to discuss economic opportunities for New Yorkers. Photo: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy David Plouffe, former Barack Obama campaign manager who was then Uber’s vice president of policy, was biased about…
