Uber Drivers Can Finally Own a Piece of the Company. Do They Want To?

Uber’s IPO was always going to be a bit awkward, even before the tensions about who would help ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange surfaced. A handful of the company’s employees and investors are going to get very rich when the company goes public this week. The 4 million men and women who drive for the company, on the other hand, will be in the same economic situation they were last month, when Uber warned in a regulatory filing that it’d face serious issues if governments made it pay drivers the minimum wage.

Uber tried to offset that awkwardness when it filed to go public last month, by announcing a plan to pay cash bonuses to about 1.1 million drivers, while also setting aside IPO shares for them to buy. The ability to purchase such shares is generally seen as a benefit for insiders, because they get to buy them before the public, when trading begins and prices may rise. Uber’s moves mirrored similar actions by Lyft, who had its own restive drivers to placate when it went public in March.