Ojek Drivers Say Cheap Fares are Killing Their Bank Accounts, But There's a Way You Can Help

Here’s the deal: I’m broke. But there's a reason. I'm just a college student/ intern right now, so it makes sense that my bank account isn't exactly going to make anyone jealous. And while I like to think that I'm not cheap—I'm thrifty—I will still take any chance I can get to save a few thousands rupiah, because that's money I can spend later on things that really matter—like tempe goreng.

Being someone who is obsessed with thriftiness means that I take public transportation everywhere I go. I've written before about the pains of Jakarta's piecemeal, barely-there transportation network and that article-length moan didn't even touch on the sheer price of it all. Every day, I take an ojek, or motorcycle taxi, twice, once to the bus station and once back to my apartment. That's four ojeks, all ordered through a ride-hailing app like GO-JEK or Grab, every single weekday.

The bus fare is non-negotiable, but the ojek rides fluctuate, rising from cheap (Rp 5,000, or $0.30 USD) to pretty pricey (Rp 12,000, or $1.30 USD) one way. That's because, like many Jakartans, I'm a slave to the algorithm. I have no idea how it works, but my finances, and by extension how much food I eat, is so intrinsically tied to the rise and fall of ride-hail app prices that I spent a lot of time sitting on the TransJakarta bus thinking about it.

I should be thankful these apps even exist. Back before the days of "ojek online," as the industry is sadly called, we all had to ride regular ojek, who set their prices based on how much they figured you would pay, and whether or not they even felt like heading back out into traffic once again. Back in those pre-app days, the price could swing wildly by tens of thousands of rupiah, depending on who you were talking to, the time of day, and whether or not it was raining.

Watch: Driving For Uber, Sleeping In Her Car

Now, even with surge pricing, things are more-or-less locked into a standardized range of prices. It's great for thrifty college students like me, right? But you know who it's not great for? The drivers themselves. To live in Jakarta means to be intimately familiar with protests and demonstrations. In the past these demos were about all kinds of things, from the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar to efforts to defund the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) by corrupt lawmakers.

But, today, the protests that stand out in my mind all involve GO-JEK and Grab drivers complaining about low pay. Turns out my cheap-ass rides come out of their paychecks, in a round-about way, and the knowledge that I am using these apps daily instead of, well, walking, has me feeling all kinds of guilty. Should my own (hopefully temporary) brokeness come at the expense of someone else's livelihood? Should I feel guilty, because of broke life solidarity and all of that? Is there anything I can do?

First, some quick explanation: Both GO-JEK and Grab are tech companies, which means they are rewarded for continued growth with investment from tech world money men like venture capital firms. They need to offer both riders incentives (cheap fares!) and drivers reasons to choose them (healthy payouts!) to keep the company growing.

And as both companies mature, the need for these kinds of incentives lessens. Take GO-JEK, back when it was in expansion mode, the popular ride-hailing company was offering drivers such high per-kilometer rates that some were raking in as much as Rp 11 million ($724 USD) a month. Today, with a drop in per-kilometer rates, a "good month," looks more like Rp 6 million ($394 USD) and most earn an average of between Rp 2.5 million ($164 USD) to Rp 3.5 million ($230 USD) per-month.

That's a pretty big change. Fitrijansjah Toisutta, a spokesperson from Ojek Online Drivers Association of Indonesia, said that all the trouble began when GO-JEK decided to lower its fares from Rp 4,000 ($0.26 USD) per-kilometer to Rp 1,600 ($0.11 USD) in 2016.

“After a series of protests, they finally increased the fare to Rp 2,000 ($0.13 USD) per-kilometer,” Fitrijansjah told VICE. “But this is just not enough. It’s really ridiculous. Everywhere else, minimum wage always increases. But our income as drivers keeps getting lower."

These drivers saw their paychecks drop by a signifiant amount, hence all the protests, Fitrijansjah explained. But the companies themselves told VICE that these demos only represented a small fraction of their total drivers. In Jakarta alone, there are more than one million ojek drivers working for either one of these companies.

"The protests are only carried out by a small fraction of drivers, and we emphasize that they do not represent the entire driver population in any shape or form," explained Ridzky Kramadibrata, the managing director of Grab Indonesia.

Grab told VICE that it also re-adjusted its fares after meeting with protesting drivers.

“GrabBike have increased the base fare from Rp 5,000 ($0.33 USD) to Rp 7,000 ($0.46 USD)," Ridzky said. "This means that for a short trip, the per-kilometer fare is Rp 2,300 ($0.15 USD). We have improved our technology and considered the drivers’ requests, increasing the fare way above Rp 2,000 ($0.13 USD)."

GO-JEK told VICE that it had seen several studies showing that its drivers were earning, on average, wages that were well above the government's minimum wage.

“When it comes to the average income, it all boils down to the drivers’ productivity," Michael Say, the vice president of corporate affairs at GO-JEK, told VICE. "Some drivers drive full-time, some part-time. Research done by University of Indonesia’s Demographic Institution in 2017 concluded that 90 percent of drivers feel an improvement for their quality of life after joining GO-JEK. Research also shows that the drivers’ incomes in nine cities could go up to Rp 3.31 million ($203 USD), which is higher than the local minimum wage."

Fitrijansjah, though, says it isn't enough. The average driver spends as much as Rp 1 million ($65 USD) in operational costs alone in a single month. That's a sizable chunk of their salary going to stuff like gas, phone credits, and internet data.

“We’re not asking for a lot,” he told VICE. “I mean, we don’t even have any work benefits. We have to pay for the government healthcare with our own money. In 2015, when I first started working, the fare was Rp 4,000 ($0.26 USD) per-kilometer. Now I think it was just a marketing gimmick to attract drivers.”

Now, I started all of this because I was feeling guilty. So how can I help? It's simple, Fitrijansjah told VICE. Just tip. How much? Fitrijansjah said that Rp 1,000 ($0.06 USD) per-kilometer is about right. That's how much more most drivers believe they should be making, so it would go a long way to making the entire system feel more just.

“For example, if you’re traveling five kilometers, give a Rp 5,000 ($0.33 USD) tip,” he said. “That helps a lot.”

That's cheap enough that even a broke-ass college student like me can afford it. But I can't afford to tip and eat a snack of tempe goreng every workday. So, it's feeling good or deep-fried goodness. Oh, God, don't make me choose.