On Valentine’s Day last Wednesday, February 14, just a week after Uber celebrated its first profitable year since its IPO, more than 150 drivers with the California Gig Workers Union and Gig Workers Rising joined a national gig worker day of action. They came together to demand an end to low pay and unfair deactivations.

The gig drivers met at Potrero Center in San Francisco, where spirits were high. Gig drivers filled the parking lot with creative signs, decorating their cars: “Uber, stop gaslighting us”; “Uber, you’re being a bad boyfriend”; ”Uber, it’s not me, it’s you.” Then, car horns blaring, the gig drivers caravanned single-file to Uber’s Mission Bay headquarters. Because so many gig drivers participated in this action, it took more than 45 minutes for every driver to arrive.

Once at Uber HQ, drivers gave speeches, deriding Uber for continuing to lower pay and to unfairly deactivate drivers.

Uber driver and California Gig Workers Union leader Daryush Khodadadi-Mobarakeh reflected on the action, saying, “It’s getting harder and harder for us to make ends meet. The way these gig companies would like to have it, we’d have absolutely no say over our wages and working conditions. That’s why we must come together to form a union.”

Nationwide, thousands of drivers participated in this day of action.