Ahead of much-anticipated initial public offerings of stock, Lyft Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc. drivers in California are protesting a cut in their pay.

In Los Angeles, both Lyft and Uber drivers joined a 25-hour strike running from midnight Monday morning to 1 a.m. Tuesday PDT after Uber cut its per-mile pay by 25 percent in Los Angeles County and parts of Orange County.

Drivers were made aware of the pay cut via an in-app message earlier this month. Drivers in the affected areas had their pay cut from 80 to 60 cents a mile.

Although the cut directly affects only Uber drivers, many drive for both Lyft and Uber, which is why both Lyft and Uber drivers have gone on strike. According to Vox, the pay cut has “pushed drivers, who were already struggling to make ends meet, over the edge.”

“Help us end this neo-indentured servitude,” one driver on strike is quoted as saying.

Not all Lyft and Uber drivers have gone on strike, with number estimated to be 3,000 drivers, all members of the Rideshare Drivers United group.

Uber doesn’t share how many drivers it has in each locality, but Uber recruited 12,000 drivers in Los Angeles in 2017 and was looking to hire an additional 15,000, meaning their number today could be about 30,000.

The cry for higher wages for ride-hailing drivers wasn’t restricted to Southern California alone. About 60 Lyft drivers staged a protest outside San Francisco’s Omni Hotel, where they believed Lyft was holding meetings to pitch investors on its IPO.

Unfortunately for the disgruntled Lyft drivers, the IPO pitch meeting was actually held at the Olympic Club 11 miles away, or 26 minutes in a Uber or Lyft car, according to Google Maps.

Despite picking the wrong place to protest, the drivers shared their thoughts with media. “Drivers are not getting a fair deal,” driver Emmanuel Oditah of Vallejo, who has driven for three years for both Uber and Lyft, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Pay has gone down.”

The protests come as both Lyft and Uber bleed money in monumental amounts. Neither are even remotely close to being profitable, and although pay cuts for drivers may hurt, both companies going out of business would hurt the drivers even more. Ultimately, though, both companies in the long term are seeking to replace human drivers with self-driving vehicles, cutting the expense of paying drivers altogether.

Lyft is expected to go public as soon as later this week. Uber is expected to float around mid-April.

Photo: senatormarkwarner/Flickr