Welcome to the latest edition of AFT NewsWatch, a weekly service of Advocates for Fairness in Transportation, an ad hoc group of regulated transportation service companies dedicated to informing and educating the public on threats to public safety from new so-called ride-sharing or ride-booking services such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar. Visit the Archive to read previous editions.

How Uber is ruining your chances of getting a decent job

Today, as the super-rich have amassed ever greater shares of wealth, the connection between working for a living and being able to earn a decent living from work has disintegrated. Perhaps nowhere is this disparity more evident than in the growing "on-demand" economy. Companies like Uber, Lyft, Crowdflower, Homejoy, and others in transportation, delivery, hospitality, home improvement, domestic service, technology and elsewhere have adopted business models that pass the costs of doing business onto workers themselves and move the wealth their service provides upwards. 

Read more from Fortune

We need a 'third class of worker' for people like Lyft and Uber drivers, says investor

There's a war brewing over what to call the Uber and Lyft drivers in this world, and "employee" might not be the answer.  "I think it's not 1099 versus W-2. I think the right answer is a third class of worker," said Simon Rothman, a partner at Greylock and an investor in Sprig, which uses 1099 employees. "People are now becoming one-person companies, and they're not even working for one entity."

Read more from Business Insider

Police: Lyft driver demands sex from woman, drags her with car

Police are investigating after a woman reported that a for-hire driver tried to extort sex from her and later dragged her with his car when she tried to get him to return her lost phone. The incident began after the Lyft driver dropped the woman at her home and she discovered she'd left her phone in the car, police said. When the woman called her cell phone, the driver answered. 

Read more from KOMO News

Uber driver charged after caught on video fondling himself in front of customer 

A Philadelphia Uber driver was arrested after he was caught on video fondling himself in front of a female customer, police said. Nayal Salem, 57, touched himself after driving the woman from Sea Isle City, N.J., to her summer home in Avalon, N.J., over Memorial Day weekend, Avalon police said. The Jersey Shore spots are more than an hour drive away from Salem's Philadelphia home. When Salem and the woman reached her home, Salem got into the backseat, where the woman was sitting, and began rubbing himself over his clothes, police said.

Read more from the New York Daily News

Uber driver 'plows into pedestrians' after seizure

A man driving a black car registered to Uber had a seizure near Central Park and plowed into two pedestrians on Monday, law enforcement sources said. The 40-year-old was taking a passenger east in the black 2014 Toyota sedan on 59th Street when he rammed into a pole about 3:15 p.m. at the corner of Fifth Avenue near the Apple store, cops said. "I heard a car accelerating as if someone had their foot on it. He must have been going 60 to 65 mph," said street vendor Frank Bruno, 73, of the Lower East Side. 

Read more from the New York Post

Judge rejects Uber forced-arbitration clause; 2 cases proceed

Some mandated arbitration clauses for Uber drivers are unenforceable, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ruled this week, allowing two driver lawsuits against the ride-hailing company to proceed. The suits, which eventually hope to achieve class-action status, seek to have Uber drivers reclassified as employees and object to the company's background-check process. "We disagree with this ruling and plan to appeal it," Uber said. 

Read more from SF Gate

London's black cabbies launch another anti-Uber campaign

The squabble between Uber and the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA), champion of London's black cabbies, is on hiatus for the moment. The LTDA maintains Uber's fare-calculation method is illegal, and after pressuring Transport for London (TfL) to come to the same conclusion, the matter was deferred to London's High Court for a definitive ruling.

Read more from Engadget

Illegal street pickups in NYC could increase if Uber and Lyft allowed to operate in New York state, taxi driver advocate warns

Illegal street pickups could explode in the city if Uber and Lyft are allowed to operate in New York State, a taxi drivers' advocacy group warns. Under a bill pending in Albany, the app-based drivers would use their personal cars outside of New York City. But they could roll in from the suburbs to drop off a passenger and snag street hails inside city lines, said Bhairavi Desai of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

Read more from the New York Daily News

In the sharing economy, no one's an employee

What do construction companies, strip clubs, and services like Uber and Lyft have in common? The answer is that they've all been sued for trying to skirt the law by treating their workers as contractors instead of employees-a long-standing issue that is being exacerbated by the rise of the so-called sharing economy. Doing so is great for employers but potentially terrible for workers. 

Read more from The Atlantic

REACTION: Uber cashes in on subway shutdown with sky-high fares

It may have been a hellish morning for Torontonians trying to get to work during rush hour this morning, but for Uber, it was almost a PR dream come true. The controversial ride-sharing service cashed in on the sudden surge in demand as all four Toronto Subway lines took a standstill and left commuters stranded. By 7:30 AM (EST) Monday, Uber was charging customers up to 5x its normal fare, causing uproar on Twitter. 

Read more from CP24

Police: Uber driver fired shots at passenger who threw rock at vehicle

An Uber driver fired shots at one of his passengers after the man threw a rock at his vehicle early Saturday in northwest suburban Rolling Meadows, police said. Driver Marvin White, 44, picked up five passengers in the 3800 block of Central Road a few minutes before 3 a.m. Saturday, according to a statement from Rolling Meadows police. Once they reached Owl Drive and Holly Lane, three of the passengers said they were getting out of the vehicle, police said. 

Read more from the Chicago Sun-Times

Taxi protest of Uber rolls through Miami

A parade of slow-moving taxis on Miami's Brickell Avenue appeared to deliver a promised protest against Uber, with bystanders reporting traffic tie-ups as the parade moved through the busy street. "They're definitely protesting in #Brickell," recruiting manager Mike Langley posted on his Twitter feed shortly afternoon Friday. "One sign reads: 'Against Lawlesness/#Uber is Illegal." 

Read more from the Miami Herald

Uber whistleblower exposes breach in driver-approval process

The taxi giant Uber is reviewing its systems in the UK after an investigation raised questions about the robustness of its approval procedures for driver documents. Drivers have claimed that as Uber expands rapidly, the system is vulnerable to cheating by those looking to save money following reductions in Uber's fares - a claim denied by the insurgent technology firm. 

Read more from The Guardian

Tales from an Uber driver: Why I'm anonymous

Starting next week I will be writing a regular column on LAist about driving an Uber around L.A. I will be using a pseudonym. Why? Because for all the good Uber has done for commuters, they tend to have a fair amount of disdain for their "partners." There are countless accounts of the multi-billion dollar company deactivating drivers for a laundry list of reasons. Some of those reasons revolve around being critical of the transportation company in *gasp* public. 

Read more from LAist