The net income of running a car for 16 hours is 300 yuan, and the driver of the car is too tired!

After leaving the car at 6 in the morning and picking it up at 11 in the evening, excluding three meals, there are about 16 hours on the road a day. Master Zheng, a driver who drives an online taxi in Beijing, told the "Rule of Law Daily" reporter that he feels very tired after working for so long a day. When he gets home, he wants to lie down directly.

The reporter recently learned in an interview that many drivers who rent cars and drive online in Beijing drive for 14 to 15 hours a day. According to public reports, some drivers who drive online in Shanghai even spend 24 hours a day in the car, sleeping when they are sleepy and working when they wake up.

Most people think that if you drive like this, you will naturally earn more money, but the truth is not so. After deducting the cost of car rental, rent, charging and other costs, the average monthly income of drivers is between 6,000 and 8,000 yuan, which is less than 1.5 yuan for running a kilometer.

The experts interviewed believe that this phenomenon reflects the institutional vacancy of platform workers under the existing labor standard law protection system. In this regard, the most important thing at present is to expand the protection objects of the labor standard law through legislation, especially in the context of the large-scale relationship between platform workers and platform workers that breaks through the nature of labor relations. It is of great practical significance to confirm the rights protection attribute of labor standards and broaden the scope of application of labor standards law.

Sports car sixteen hours

Net income of 300 yuan

One day in early June, on the side ** a tree-lined road outside *******’s North Fourth Ring Road, the reporter got into the car ** Master Zheng as a passenger and interviewer. He told the reporter that he was in his 50s and rented in an urban village outside *******’s North Fifth Ring Road. In the ****** ** 2018, he "drove" into the online car-hailing industry with one foot on the accelerator. Because he did not have a ******* hukou or insurance in *******, he could only rent a ******* brand car from the rental car company to drive the online car.

What is the concept of working 16 hours a day?

For example, Master Zheng said that on June 7, he went out at 6 am, bought a drawer of buns for breakfast at the breakfast shop in the village, and then launched an online car-hailing platform. The first order was quickly sent to him, and he received a fare of 17 yuan for a short trip; then he received an order of 8 kilometers, and received a fare of 22 yuan… During this period, he has been in the car and never stopped taking orders.

By two or three o’clock in the afternoon, he was really hungry, so he quickly went offline while running an order, and found a nearby restaurant to spend 18 yuan to eat a bowl of noodles. At 11 o’clock that night, he ended his day of online taxi work, went back to the village to eat casually, and then returned to his place. After finishing his housework, he washed up and went to bed at one or two o’clock in the night, and four or five hours later, he had to get up and start work.

Master Zheng told reporters that his income that day was more than 800 yuan, excluding the cost of the day, the net income was about 300 yuan, and the highest income order that day was for passengers from Qinghe Town, Haidian District to Songjiazhuang, Fengtai District. The fare was more than 80 yuan.

Master Zheng calculated an account for the reporter: the rented house is 800 yuan a month, plus more than 900 yuan after water and electricity bills; the car rental fee is 60,000 yuan a year, 5,000 yuan a month; the daily fuel fee is 140 yuan; the daily meal money, cigarette money, etc. are about 80 yuan; to the car insurance, maintenance, etc., an average of about 40 yuan a day, and there will be maintenance fees caused by bumps and bumps if you are not careful.

"The average cost per day is about 500 yuan." He said that as soon as he opened his eyes, he had to earn the 500 yuan first, and the extra part was his own. Even if the income of the sports car was 600 or 700 yuan a day, he only earned one or two hundred yuan. In this case, even if he encountered a limited number of days, he would rather pay the fine and insist on leaving the car. "If you don’t drive for a day, not only will you have no income, but also the cost of living at 500 yuan will not be covered."

Increased sports car time

Revenues actually decrease

The reporter interviewed a number of drivers while riding an online car-hailing, and got similar answers. The drivers who rented a car and drove an online car-hailing car basically worked 14 to 15 hours a day, which was much longer than the online time in previous years. But the online time increased, but the money earned did not increase.

Master Sun from the northeast has been running online car-hailing in Beijing for many years. At present, he sports cars for at least fourteen or five hours every day, basically without rest for a month. He said that when he first started online car-hailing, the platform dispatched orders, and he could earn 2 yuan or more for running one kilometer. There were also many orders, and there were platform rewards. Even if he got out of the car at 7 am and picked up the car at 9 pm, his daily income would be more than 900 yuan, or even 1,000 yuan. But now, even if he got out of the car at 6 am and picked up the car at 12 pm, his daily income would be difficult to reach 900 yuan.

"The reason is that the online ride-hailing platform has pushed the unit price per kilometer lower and lower. In the past, the unit price per kilometer was 2 yuan or even more, but now the unit price per kilometer is 1.4 yuan to 1.5 yuan. The number of orders sent is also small, and there is no reward for driving." Master Sun said.

On his mobile phone, although he downloaded the end point of three online ride-hailing platforms, Master Sun believes that having more platforms is not a good thing for drivers. Passengers order from multiple platforms, and the platforms will lower prices with each other. There is always a lower price displayed by the platform, and passengers always choose the lowest price to place an order. As a result, the income of the driver side will decrease. Some platforms will also sell orders. For example, passengers place an order on the A platform. After receiving the order, the A platform will transfer the order to the B platform, and the B platform will send the order to the driver. In this process, the A platform and the B platform will take a proportional share, and there will be a big gap between the fee received by the driver and the fee paid by the passenger.

Master Sun said with emotion, from car owners to car rental companies, to major platforms, etc., all point to online ride-hailing drivers to make money, "We support the company and platform, but we can’t support our own family soon."

Wang Tianyu, deputy director and researcher of the Social Law Research Office of the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that long-term work by online ride-hailing drivers is a result of many factors.

He said that online car-hailing is a paid way of working, so in order to earn income, it is necessary to continue to take orders, which also makes online car-hailing drivers willing to invest longer. In addition, there are corresponding costs for online car-hailing every day, including the platform’s commission, the driver’s living expenses, and income expectations.

Wu Wenfang, a professor at the Law School of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, believes that some online ride-hailing drivers work fifteen or sixteen hours a day, and even eat and live in the car to save costs. This way of working that seriously damages the right to rest and health is related to the lack of corresponding mandatory labor standards.

She explained that the traditional labor relationship is protected by the Labor Standards Law, with a maximum working time limit, and workers are also entitled to overtime pay. However, at this stage, there are various relationships between platform workers and the platform. If both parties sign an employment contract, the online car-hailing driver is of course protected by the labor standard of working hours; but if the nature of crowdsourcing labor between the online car-hailing driver and the platform, the platform only has algorithmic control over the online car-hailing driver and does not impose labor management on it. Generally, it is considered that the two parties are in a civil relationship; if the online car-hailing platform implements a certain degree of labor management on the online car-hailing driver, but does not achieve the subordinate intensity required by the labor relationship, it should be determined that it cannot fully comply with the labor relationship situation.

In Wu Wenfang’s opinion, although the "Guidelines for the Protection of Workers’ Rights and Interests in Rest and Labor Remuneration in New Employment Forms" clearly states that "the daily working hours of workers in new employment forms include the accumulated time for receiving orders on the same day and the relaxation time determined by taking into account the necessary online orders, service preparation, physiological needs and other factors". However, firstly, this guideline does not have mandatory legal effect, and secondly, under the existing legal framework, the latter two relationship laws cannot be applied to the provisions of the Labor Standards Law.

Improve relevant laws

Protect legitimate rights and interests

According to the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Employees in New Formats of Transportation" jointly issued by the Ministry of Transport and other departments, relevant departments in various places should urge online car-hailing platform enterprises to scientifically determine the working hours and labor intensity of drivers to ensure that they have enough rest time. Supervise online car-hailing platform enterprises to continuously optimize the order dispatch mechanism, improve the operation efficiency of vehicles during online services, and shall not lure drivers to work overtime by means of rewards for charging orders.

Previously, a number of online ride-hailing platforms have also issued anti-fatigue driving rules for drivers, with the aim of effectively preventing fatigue driving through technical means.

In Wang Tianyu’s view, this is the contradictory situation facing the entire industry. It is necessary to ensure that drivers have a reasonable right to rest, prevent them from overwork, and ensure that they receive a reasonable income, but this also requires them to have enough online time. If the online car-hailing industry is regarded as a big cake, the essence of the problem is to increase benefits and share the cake. From the perspective of increasing benefits, trade unions and other institutions that can provide labor benefits can set up sites such as driver’s homes to provide services such as drinking water and rest for online car-hailing drivers.

"From the perspective of dividing the cake, we can consider using government guidance to introduce policies to guide the platform to reduce management costs and operating costs, increase the proportion of drivers in the entire income distribution, and make the seesaw of the online car-hailing industry reach a balance, or tilt towards drivers." Wang Tianyu said that at the same time, national policies should be implemented to give play to the role of the collective negotiation mechanism participated by trade unions, and through the collective negotiation of online car-hailing platforms, industry associations and trade unions, to achieve a reasonable income distribution.

Wu Wenfang believes that the most important thing at the moment is to expand the protection objects of the Labor Standards Law through legislation, and the mandatory application of working hours should not be limited to workers with labor relations. Whether it is a civil relationship or a labor relationship situation cannot be fully confirmed, as long as there is labor payment behavior, there should be labor standards such as working hours, rest and vacation, and labor safety and health protection to give online car drivers corresponding legal protection.

"The goal of the Labor Standards Law is not only to protect the right to rest and health of workers with labor relations, but to provide workers with compulsory legal protection in terms of working environment and working hours. The legal basis behind this is not only the protection of labor rights. Especially in the context of the large-scale relationship between platform workers and platform workers breaking through the attributes of labor relations, it is of great practical significance to confirm the rights protection attributes of labor standards and broaden the scope of application of labor standards law." Wu Wenfang said.