When Bharathi Veerath joined Uber two years ago as a a cab driver in Bengaluru, she made the front pages. Last evening, she was discovered hanging in the home where she lived alone. Her death is being treated as a case of suicide, though no suicide letter has been found.
Police sources say Ms Veerath's taxi - a Ford Fiesta that she had reportedly saved up to buy - was found abandoned near her house.
"She worked as a tailor and then with an NGO where she learnt how to drive. Later, she joined private taxi aggregator company Uber, where she was the city's first woman cab driver," reports The Huffington Post.
Ms Veerath, who moved to Bengaluru from Andhra Pradesh ten years ago according to local media, lived alone. Her body was found by her landlord, who has told the police that Ms Veerath, 39, had informed him that she planned to move back to Andhra soon.
"It appears to be a case of suicide, as the victim's (V. Bharathi) body was found hanging by a cloth-like rope from the ceiling of a room by her landlord on Monday night," police officer Prakash told news agency IANS.
"The landlord went to the third floor of his house where Bharathi was staying in the rented portion to check her whereabouts as he did not see her again since Sunday night and found her body hanging through the room's window and alerted us," he disclosed.
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A global economist has called for taxi drivers to unite against Uber and form a workers’ collective.
Ann Pettifor, analyst of the global financial system and director of Prime Economics, said that workers should be in control of platforms such as Uber and Airbnb, especially since they own the working capital of the business.
“This is an ideal opportunity for us to be arguing for more worker co-operatives,” said Ms Pettifor at the Co-operative Congress in Wakefield. “The really fascinating thing about Uber, about Airbnb and about these other sectors is that actually the capital of those businesses is owned by the workers.
“So the drivers of the cars own the car, they have bought the car, they have invested in it, they maintain it, they invest in its maintenance, they insure it.”
Ms Pettifor added: “They pay for all of that and then they pay something for the app. They are then allowed by Uber in California, in Silicon Valley, to retain some of their allowance but why on earth should Uber be such a company? Why should it operate in this way? Why do taxi drivers not come together and form a collective?”
In a speech to delegates, Ms Pettifor said it’s hard for workers to come together, especially in big cities. So she also called on local legislators to intervene. “I think it is quite possible for our cities to set up a rule where only worker-operated taxi drivers will be allowed to operate in the city,” she said.
“There are lots of regulations around it and there ought to be a lot of regulation around taxi driving. We know from the way women are treated in taxis and so on and so forth, there already is a fair amount of regulation, why not have more? Why not have cities insist that only worker-owned driving organisations can operate in their city?”
Ms Pettifor said taxi drivers can change the relationship with Uber. “They don’t have drivers who are employees,” she said. “They have business partners. Well let’s change the partnership. Why don’t the drivers organise themselves collectively in a co-op and then negotiate directly with the software providers?”They are very happy to pay for the software, that is what these guys in Silicon Valley are making, but they are not making the car or investing the capital, the workers are.”
Ms Pettifor added that the same applied to those people who rent out properties through Airbnb: “ I invest in my home, I take out the mortgage, I keep it maintained, I clean it up and I am paying an immense share of what I am earning to a company in Silicon Valley. Why don’t we reorganise?”
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