Star Tribune
Twin Cities drivers join worldwide Uber, Lyft strike
Organizers say hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers in Minnesota shut off their phone apps on Valentine’s Day, joining a global one-day protest designed to draw attention to complaints of low pay and other problematic work conditions.
The ride share drivers are striking across the United States, Canada and Europe in the hopes of forcing the app-based ride-share companies to raise driver salaries, set minimum wage standards and insert greater transparency into how much of each fare the independent contractors get to retain.
“We are in solidarity with the international movement to go off line in protest to Uber and Lyft’s unfair pay and treatment of its workers,” said Yusuf Haji, who heads a group of several hundred Uber and Lyft drivers in the Twin Cities that is actively organizing the one-day strike in Minnesota. “We are no different than anybody else on this planet who is trying to make a living. So, we have asked all our drivers to go off line the whole day today, on Valentine’s Day.”
The companies have about 5 million ride share drivers worldwide, including about 1.7 million in the United States and more than 10,000 in the greater Twin Cities area.
“Despite the headlines, we’ve seen no impact on our operations or amount of drivers working,” said Uber spokesman Josh Gold. “In fact, in Minnesota, there were more trips so far today than there were during the same period last week and more drivers working.”
Uber and other companies that rely on self-employed gig workers say those workers appreciate the flexibility of the job. But many gig workers are pushing to unionize, saying that would give them the ability to bargain over compensation, safety measures and other benefits.
“We are constantly working to improve the driver experience, which is why just this month we released a series of new offers and commitments aimed at increasing driver pay and transparency,” said Lyft spokesman CJ Macklin. “This includes a new earnings commitment and an improved deactivation appeals process. Now, drivers will always make at least 70% of the weekly rider fares after external fees. It’s all part of our new customer-obsessed focus on drivers.”
The strike is the latest move for drivers who say they were badly impacted during the pandemic and have since seen their wages decline and their car expenses increase. Many drive full-time and have increased work hours but say they cannot generate enough income to feed their families and pay rent. Some rides, they say, pay as little as $5.
Drivers across the country held midday demonstrations at different airports, according to Justice for App Workers, the group organizing the effort.
During the last two years, frustrated Minnesota drivers have picketed at MSP Airport, Minneapolis City Hall and the state Capitol building. They have also worked with legislators, who passed a bill in 2023 that would have created a minimum wages for the drivers.
Gov. Tim Walz, however, vetoed the bill, opting instead to create a task force of drivers, companies and legislators to study the issues and come up with recommendations. The task force met from July through December and issued a report on Dec. 30 before disbanding.
Now drivers are trying to work with the Minneapolis City Council to pass a minimum pay law. Workers planned to meet with some Minneapolis City Council members again Wednesday night.
Twin Cities drivers say they get to keep only 25% to 50% of each ride but bear 100% of the gas and car maintenance costs that make the ride-share service companies billions of dollars each year.
Ride-hailing companies say they already pay a fair wage and have an appeals process in place for deactivations.
Drivers in the Twin Cities said they are tired of waiting for legislators or the companies to act.
“The only impact that can affect Uber and Lyft is when you turn off your app,” said St. Paul resident Abdirahman Mohamud, who has driven for Uber for seven years. “Turning off the app is the biggest tool we have to make sure that we are heard.” by both the companies and by the state government.
Eid Ali, president of a different driver’s organization, the 1,300-member Minnesota Uber Lyft Drivers Association (MULDA), said his group is not organizing a strike locally. But he said, “We support the workers and support anything that will raise the voices of the workers.”
MULDA hopes to continue to work with Minnesota legislators to bring a new bill that would help thousands of local ride share drivers, Ali said. The hope is to move the recommendations generated by the governor’s task force into bills and then into law.
Recommendations include creating a minimum pay of $5 for any ride and setting up a fair and easy process in which drivers who are suddenly removed from a ride share system can find out why and appeal the decision.
Includes reporting from the Associated Press.
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
