Among the plethora of scandals that Uber has experienced, from its intentions to profit from the protest against U.S President's trump controversial executive ban on refugees and immigrants, to the trending hashtag of #DeleteUber, Uber reportedly owes its New York drivers upwards of $45 million. 

The ride-sharing network company Uber began in 2009. Led by the co-founder and rather infamous Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, the company started it's company in its current headquarters of San Francisco, California. 2010 marked the beginning of the Uber mobile app, allowing Uber to take over American cities beyond San Francisco, and later the world. Currently offering different types of transportation cars, from Uber X and Uber Pool, drivers can now use their own cars to work at Uber and users can share rides with other customers respectively. After launching a food delivery service through its sister app UberEATS, Uber has already diversified itself past simple ride-sharing. This is shown by its recent focus towards a future with autonomous cars. Nevertheless, the recent scandals surrounding Uber and the CEO Kalanick, such as poor relationships with Uber employees and an argument between Kalanick and an Uber driver over wages, have damaged its public relations relationship with its customers.  

© Kmeron / Flickr.com

Uber recently reported a mistaken cut had been taken from its drivers, stating that they had taken more than their 25% commission that had been agreed on between Uber and its drivers. In doing so, Uber reportedly took more through the taxes laid out in each trip, leading some drivers to consider this as "wage theft." Following a collection method that dates to 2014, in the early days of Uber's presence in New York, the "Uber fee" of commission essentially took payments directly from the driver's payment. This is only exacerbated by the argument between Kalanick and an Uber driver in a video that surfaced earlier this year, where a driver noted that he was getting paid less than he usually had been paid before. 

Amidst the scandal, Uber's regional general manager Rachel Holt has assured that Uber is "committed to paying every driver every penny they are owed - plus interest - as quickly as possible."

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Since then, Uber has attempted to prove itself. With the average amount of payments reaching $900, Uber has indeed dedicated themselves to paying their drivers with interest. The highest amount recently reported for a payment has recently been more than a staggering $7,000 without interest.

The Independent Drivers Guild, a New York based labor union that represents ride-sharing drivers has expressed their distrust of Uber, and other ride services. Ryan Price, the executive director expanded on the growing discontent of independent drivers, stating that they "also call for regulators to launch an immediate investigation into ride-hail applications fare and payment practices in our city, including but not limited to the practice by Uber and other apps of charging commission on gross fares instead of net fares and the use of 'upfront pricing' by Uber, Lyft and Juno to create a secret surcharge above and beyond the commission agreed to by the drivers."

© Lyft

While ride-sharing drivers await the action of regulation regarding their treatment by transportation network companies, Uber competitors, such as Lyft, are due to more customer use given the ever-growing count of scandals surrounding Uber. Already, Lyft is generally accepted to be the more "driver-friendly company", leading to what Business Insider has noted as Lyft's way of "increasing its share of the complicated and competitive market." 

With other companies capitalizing on higher grounds of morality regarding the treatment of their drivers, Uber must step up it's relationship with its own drivers before it is swallowed by its competitors.