Best of Spotlights · 7 min read
In New York City, 85,000 drivers — 91% of them immigrants — power one of the largest rideshare markets in the world. Uber and Lyft take extortionate commissions on every ride. They classify drivers as independent contractors to avoid paying benefits. They set prices with inscrutable algorithms that drivers have no say over. The Drivers Cooperative is building the alternative. Worker-owned. Democratically governed. Fair pay guaranteed.
2020 — The Drivers Cooperative founded · 2021 — Co-Op Ride app launches · $30/hr living wage target for driver-owners
The Problem: The Gig Economy Trap
In New York City, Uber and Lyft run on the exploited labor of a 91%-immigrant workforce of 85,000 drivers. Through misclassification of drivers as independent contractors, the corporate rideshare platforms push drivers into poverty by externalizing all vehicle costs and taking extortionate commissions on each ride.
Even before the pandemic, over 70% of drivers had less than $1,000 in savings — a reflection of New York City’s deep racial wealth gap and the predatory structure of the rideshare platform economy.
The gig economy promised flexibility and freedom. What it delivered was poverty wages, no benefits, and zero democratic voice — for some of the hardest-working people in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
The Founding: Building Back Better
The Drivers Cooperative was founded in 2020 by Mohammad Hossen, Ken Lewis, and Erik Forman — bringing together drivers, labor organizers, and cooperative developers.
The core insight was simple and radical: the platform is just software. The actual value in rideshare — the drivers, the vehicles, the local knowledge — is created by workers. There is no reason those workers shouldn’t own the platform.
The founders’ idea was that The Drivers Cooperative could gain a competitive advantage over Uber and Lyft by doing away with the most exploitative practices of the dominant duopoly. “The way the Uber model is organized is extractive. It takes out the money and doesn’t give back much.”
The Launch: Co-Op Ride Goes Live
In May 2021, The Drivers Cooperative launched the Co-Op Ride app — New York City’s first worker-owned rideshare platform. The first 2,500 drivers were issued their ownership certificates in a media event — workers receiving the legal documentation of their ownership.
Each driver owns one share of the company, giving them a vote in the company’s leadership, and receives a share of the company’s profits weighted by their patronage — how much time and labor they invest in the co-op. (Source: Patronage — The Drivers Cooperative)
This is the cooperative model applied to the platform economy. Not a union. Not a protest. An ownership stake.
How It Works: Democratic Governance in a Taxi
- One driver, one share, one vote — every driver-owner has equal governance rights
- Drivers sit on the board of directors as genuine decision-makers
- Drivers set their own minimum hourly wage — a power no Uber or Lyft driver has ever had
- Drivers vote on investment decisions — including a $1 surcharge on each trip to help co-op members purchase electric vehicles
- Profits return to driver-owners — not to distant shareholders in San Francisco
“There is no other company where drivers can connect with an operations leader or finance leader and have a one-on-one conversation about either struggles on the road or their expectations for the week.”
— Beckles, Operations Manager, The Drivers Cooperative (formerly a driver himself). Source: Next City
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The Living Wage Target
The Co-Op Ride platform uses real-time traffic data to create efficient routes so drivers consistently earn a $30/hr living wage — while also cutting down on carbon emissions through optimized routing.
This is what cooperative economics looks like in the gig economy — not just ownership, but the practical use of that ownership to guarantee dignified compensation that corporate platforms have systematically denied.
The Cross-Cooperative Model
The Drivers Cooperative started a pilot project giving rides to workers for the Bronx-based Cooperative Home Care Associates — an example of Cooperation Among Cooperatives.
A worker-owned rideshare cooperative providing transportation for workers at a worker-owned home care cooperative. Cooperative enterprises supporting each other, keeping money within the cooperative ecosystem rather than sending it to Uber’s shareholders.
The Electric Vehicle Transition
The $1 per ride surcharge that driver-owners voted to implement is specifically designed to help members purchase electric vehicles — a direct investment by the cooperative in the green transition of its own fleet.
The people most harmed by vehicle emissions are building the cooperative that is moving fastest toward eliminating them.
The Bigger Picture: Platform Cooperativism
“Platform Co-ops Now!” is a joint initiative of Mondragon Team Academy and the Platform Cooperativism Consortium. It’s a 15-week, two-year, fully online program (supported in English and Spanish, with local partner-led discussions in local languages) aimed at people who want to launch platform co-ops, researchers, policy people, or existing co-ops and startups looking to convert. Year one covers theory — platform capitalism, the cooperative advantage, ownership models. Year two is hands-on: business model generation, building on Sharetribe (a no-code platform-building tool), financial planning, and a public pitch at the end. The program’s own materials feature a testimonial from SEWA Cooperative Federation (India, representing informal women workers) about the cross-border network’s value. (Source: Platform Co-ops Now! — Mondragon Team Academy)
The theory is straightforward: the major gig economy platforms are just software connecting workers to customers. The workers are the value. There is no economic reason they shouldn’t own the platform.
Platform cooperativism is being practiced globally — Up&Go (worker-owned home cleaning in NYC), Stocksy United (worker-owned stock photography), Resonate (cooperative music streaming), and Fairbnb.coop (cooperative alternative to Airbnb in European cities).
The Drivers Cooperative is the largest and most visible platform cooperative in the United States.
“I’ve never seen this hunger for change that exists with drivers. They know the current model is broken. They know they deserve better. And now they own the alternative.” — Drivers Cooperative co-founder
What The Drivers Cooperative Proves
- Worker-owned rideshare is technically possible — the app works, the rides happen, the platform functions
- Drivers want ownership — 2,500 drivers joined immediately at launch, growing to over 9,000 driver-members by 2023, roughly 15% of New York City’s total ride-hailing workforce (Source: Next City)
- Democratic governance works in real time — drivers are voting on wages, surcharges, and strategy in a fast-moving technology business
- Cooperation among cooperatives creates resilience — partnerships with other cooperatives, like the pilot rides TDC ran for Bronx-based Cooperative Home Care Associates, build a structurally committed customer base and put the sixth Rochdale Principle — cooperation among cooperatives — into practice
- The gig economy is not inevitable — every ride completed through Co-Op Ride is proof that the extractive platform economy has a democratic alternative
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This is part of our Best of Spotlights series — shining a light on the cooperative businesses and projects building the new economy. Know a cooperative we should feature? Reach out through solidarityecono.my.
Written by the Cooperative Codebase team — Aaron, Israel, and Jamie. Part of the Solidarity Economy Marketplace. Last updated: July 2026.
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