Cruise autonomous vehicle training operators were offered the opportunity to redeploy to help … [+]
Amid the news of wide-reaching layoffs of its 1,800-employee workforce, less discussed was the departure of Cruise’s CFO. Geoffrey Richardson has quietly stepped down from his role at the self-driving startup.
Hired in September 2017, Richardson oversaw the investment of more than $7 billion in the self-driving startup General Motors
Cruise announced this week an 8% reduction of its full-time staff to refocus its efforts on engineering and weather the ongoing pandemic. However, that number doesn’t include the contractor reductions that started last month.
Former contractors for the self-driving company report that over the last few weeks, between 10-20 autonomous vehicle training operators (AVTO) had their contracts terminated early. Many believe that they were let go because they were critical of the company’s procedures during the covid-19 pandemic.
AVTOs are responsible for monitoring self-driving vehicles as they collect “autonomous miles” transporting Cruise employees around San Francisco for its test program. With Cruise’s employees working from home, the program was idled on March 16. Three weeks later, the AVTOs, who are contractors employed by AeroTek, had their pay reduced from 40 hours to 30 hours in addition to losing their weekly attendance bonus. Around this same time AeroTek offered them with an opportunity to receive their full salary through a new program delivering food for community food distribution programs.
Drivers who “opted-in” to this program would be paid for 40 hours with their attendance bonus reinstated if they sign up to deliver food six days per week for a total of 33 hours. However, volunteers were slow to sign up, according to former workers. One former contractor told Forbes that they didn’t volunteer because of “safety concerns.”
On March 20th Aerotek announced that a Cruise employee had contracted covid-19, but rumors of infected co-workers had been swirling around the facilities after an emergency evacuation of one of the facilities on March 13. Although AVTOs were given personal protective equipment during the food deliveries, they would be working in pairs while driving around in the vehicle for five and a half hours each day.
On April 20, contractors received another notice that their pay would be reduced to 20 hours per week except for those that opted-in to the food delivery program, who would also receive free parking and lunch as an added bonus. AVTOs said that by further reducing their hours, they felt they had no choice but to opt-in if they want to be able to pay their bills. Losing the weekly attendance bonus alone accounts for 25% of their total possible compensation.
One former AVTO observed that many operators who did not opt-in to the program have had their contracts cancelled by AeroTek in the following weeks, along with anyone who had spoken up about safety concerns in the the Slack group or were critical of Cruise’s or AeroTek’s approach to ensuring workplace safety surrounding covid-19. The former workers say that they had demonstrated exemplary attendance and and a record of promotions and raises for performance, and feel they were targeted by AeroTek’s fleet manager for speaking out.
Contacted by Forbes, a spokesperson for Cruise says that the company has confirmed that no contractors were let go for raising safety concerns. The official explanation given to the workers by AeroTek was that their 12-month contracts ended early “due to Cruise’s current change in work tasks.” However, those notices were delivered to the operators at least two weeks before its layoffs of its salaried were announced by Cruise, and food distribution for the SF Food Bank and other community meal delivery programs is ongoing.
While Cruise employees will receive severance and have their healthcare benefits paid by the company through the end of the year, no compensation was offered to former contractors. Now they’re now scrambling to find—and afford—health insurance during a pandemic.
