Uber and Lyft Drivers Went on Strike at Mitchell Airport

When Vanessa Gasper started driving for Uber and Lyft in 2016, she’d pocket about 80 percent of a ride’s total price tag, with 20 percent going to the rideshare companies.

Since then, she said the ratio has almost flipped.

“Now, it’s like we’re getting 40 percent, and they’re getting 60, if not more,” she said, adding that a customer’s $60 ride sometimes pays her only $15.

Frustrated with dwindling income, Uber and Lyft drivers at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport went on strike against the two companies last Thursday. Though the strike was dispersed by police, the drivers hope to use the momentum to officially organize.

The drivers are not part of a union, and the strike was a grassroots effort.

To pull off the strike, drivers gathered in the airport’s staging lot — where drivers wait to match with customers — but turned off their rideshare apps.

“We were feeding everybody — beef hot dogs, bananas, fruits and soda,” said Yussuf Izhiman, one of the drivers who organized the action.

About 30 drivers regularly work at the airport, Izhiman estimated. Most of them joined the strike, he said, but a couple drivers kept taking rides.

So the strikers moved their setup to block the exit from the staging lot.

“Listen guys, we’re all trying to work together. Please don’t do this,” Izhiman recalled telling the working drivers.

“Don’t take rides out of the airport. If you want to work, go to the suburbs,” Gasper said organizers told them.

“Unfortunately, there got to be a fight,” Izhiman said.

Somebody called the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office. A squad car showed up and told strikers they couldn’t block the exit from the lot, effectively ending the strike.

The airport lets Uber and Lyft use its staging lot on the condition that drivers are working, an airport spokesperson told WPR. The strikers also didn’t have a permit, which is necessary to protest on airport property, the spokesperson wrote.

Izhiman said the drivers “got a feel for what was going to come in our way.” He hopes to organize the drivers into an association. The drivers are meeting Tuesday with the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, an association of AFL-CIO locals.

“We’re going to do it the legal way, the way it has to be done,” Izhiman said.

Gasper said there’s a divide between full-time rideshare drivers who rely on the living they make from Uber and Lyft and part-time drivers who are happy to make a side income, even if it’s variable.

Chris Raymond, a part-time driver who sometimes works the airport, said strikes like Thursday’s leave “money on the table so drivers like myself can come in and make about $550 in a few hours across just two days.”

“For me as a student, that almost pays my rent for the month,” Raymond wrote to WPR.

Uber did not respond to a WPR request for comment. In a statement, a Lyft spokesperson said the company was rolling out an “earnings commitment that ensures drivers always make at least 70% of the weekly rider fares after external fees” and an “improved” process for drivers to appeal if their accounts are deactivated.

‘Not worth it like it used to be’: Drivers describe changing rideshare industry

The day after the strike, drivers were working again. Between rides, they rested in the shade of the airport staging lot’s few trees.

All drivers who spoke with WPR on Friday at the lot had taken part in the strike. They described a rideshare industry that’s increasingly difficult for drivers. Declining pay was their chief concern.

For driver Hashem Alma, taking a customer from the airport to downtown Milwaukee used to net him between $12 and $13. Now, he said he gets about $9 for that ride.

“We’re losing $3. But they still charge the customer the same amount. Where do they go with these $3, $4?” he asked.

Drivers said their share of fares has been declining for years but dropped more sharply in 2025.

In recent years, both companies started giving drivers pickups miles away from their last drop-off location, said driver Marwan Oweidi.

“They jerk us around. This is gas consumption, polluting the Earth, tiring for the driver and making the passenger wait longer,” he said.

It’s difficult to reach Uber and Lyft with their concerns, Izhiman said, like when a driver is suspended following a customer complaint. Help lines land them with call centers and India and China, he said, or with an AI operator.

“We have no method of direct communication with Uber. We have no true representation. We can’t have any say or comment about how they manage the queue, how they set the rates,” said driver Rocky Holmgren.

The costs of being an independent contractor — paying for your own insurance, gas and repairs — are harder to bear with declining pay, drivers who spoke with WPR said.

“A lot of drivers are coming out of this business because it’s not worth it like it used to be,” Oweidi said.

About a decade ago, drivers could make over $2,000 per week, Izhiman said, enough for them to leave other full-time jobs. He said there used to be over 50 regular rideshare drivers at the airport.

That has declined to about 30 today, he said.

A bill heading to Gov. Tony Evers’ desk would officially classify Wisconsin’s Uber and Lyft drivers as independent contractors, while establishing insurance-like accounts they could pay into.

Drivers who spoke with WPR said they support legal minimum pay-per-mile rates for rideshare drivers, like those recently adopted in Minnesota.

Lyft turned a profit in fiscal year 2024 for the first time since going public in 2019.

Uber went public that same year. It turned its first annual profit in 2023.

Listen to the WPR report

Uber and Lyft drivers went on strike at Milwaukee’s airport. They say pay is falling. was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.