When drivers for the ride-share apps Uber, Lyft and Juno walk off the job in cities across the country on Wednesday, demanding better pay and working conditions, they’ll have the support of many progressive elected officials. But few, if any, will be demonstrating as much solidarity as Virginia Del. Lee Carter (D). Carter, a self-described democratic socialist from the northern Virginia suburb of Manassas, drives part-time for Lyft and announced on Twitter that he will be participating in the strike.

AFP Contributor/Getty Images/Brendan Smialowski Virginia Del. Lee Carter (D), a former Marine, drives for Lyft to make ends meet when the legislature is not in session.

“This strike is to send a message that the folks at corporate at Uber and Lyft who are getting massively rich off of the exploitation of drivers is not going unnoticed,” he told HuffPost. The strike, convened by new ride-share drivers’ rights groups, as well as more establishedNew York City-based labor unions, is timed to precede Uber’s initial public offering ― or first public stock sale ― on Thursday. The ride-share juggernaut is expected to issue stock worth $91 billion, providing a massive payout for the company’s early investors. Uber and Lyft, which are much larger than the New York-based Juno, claim that they are concerned about drivers’ ability to earn a living. Lyft maintains that average hourly driver pay is $20 an hour. And a Stanford University study released in March found that Uber drivers earn $21 an hour on average. But unlike ordinary companies with full-time employees, Uber and Lyft classify their drivers as independent contractors, freeing the company of the obligation to deduct payroll taxes for Social Security or guarantee a certain level of pay. Research that accounts for the financial risks borne by ride-share drivers in this arrangement has found that their hourly pay often falls short of the minimum wage. When factoring in fees drivers pay the company, vehicle-related expenses and out-of-pocket spending on payroll taxes and health care benefits, the average hourly wage of an Uber driver was $9.41, according to a May 2018 study conducted by the liberal Economic Policy Institute. The drivers’ independent status also leaves them vulnerable to sudden changes in market conditions or payment formulas dictated by corporate management. Average pay for ride-share and food delivery app drivers declined 53 percent from 2013 to 2017, according to a J.P. Morgan analysis. Carter expressed fear that ride-share companies’ entry into the stock market ― Lyft went public in March ― is likely to be accompanied by additional reductions in drivers’ shares of passenger fees. “You’ve got folks that are becoming billionaires overnight off of these IPOs while they’re pushing cuts to the driver pay formula ― in fact, partly because they’re pushing cuts to the driver pay formula,” he said. “It’s unconscionable.”

There are people doing this full time ... and in some cases, they’re just barely getting by. Virginia Del. Lee Carter (D)