Portside

One group who won’t benefit much from Uber’s IPO: its drivers, who numbered 3.9 million at the end of last year. They are likely to see their pay worsen as the company strives to become more profitable while facing public shareholder pressure.

From sufism to reggae, from construction work to driving taxis, it has been a colorful ride for one of the co-founders of a taxi drivers union in New York.

Tsering Sherpa, a Queens resident who said he drove for Uber six days a week, eight hours a day, predicted the fare cuts would force him to work 10 to 14 hours a day to make his rent and car payments. “New York City just keeps getting more and more expensive,” Mr. Sherpa said at the rally. “How are we supposed to survive with less money?” “They call us partners,” he added. “But they’re treating us like slaves.”

Through workers associations, work centers, and “alt-labor” groups, millions of workers — along with part-time workers, temporary workers, and those who work for employers that have no union — are using new tactics to fight against that inequality of bargaining power. The groups are not competing with traditional unions, but rather working alongside them and in tandem.