(Reuters) – Uber Technologies Inc Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi on Monday sought U.S. government’s support for its independent drivers and delivery workers in the coronavirus stimulus package.
Lawmakers in Washington are discussing a deal to pump more than $1 trillion into the economy to limit the economic damage due to the virus, in addition to the hundreds of billions of dollars in fiscal and monetary stimulus that has already been deployed to prop up the world’s largest economy.
“My goal in writing to you is not to ask for a bailout for Uber, but rather for support for independent workers and, once we move past the immediate crisis, the opportunity to legally provide them with a real safety net going forward,” Khosrowshahi said in a letter https://twitter.com/dkhos/status/1242080166731337729 addressed to the U.S. President.
Khosrowshahi said in a tweet he also asked lawmakers to require companies such as Uber to provide new benefits and protections to independent contractors going forward.
The Trump administration is also considering https://in.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa/trump-presses-for-1-trillion-stimulus-as-u-s-coronavirus-deaths-cross-100-idINKBN2142EP a plan to send checks to individual Americans of $1,000 to help them weather the crisis, though details of the proposal remained unclear.
Uber shares were down about 7% in early trading.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru)
