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The Almighty Buck Transportation United Kingdom

Uber Loses Right To Classify UK Drivers as Self-Employed (theguardian.com) 143

Uber drivers are not self-employed and should be paid the "national living wage," a UK employment court has ruled in a landmark case which could affect tens of thousands of workers in the gig economy. From a report on the Guardian: The ride-hailing app could now be open to claims from all of its 40,000 drivers in the UK, who are currently not entitled to holiday pay, pensions or other workers' rights. Uber immediately said it would appeal against the ruling. Employment experts said other firms with large self-employed workforces could now face scrutiny of their working practices and the UK's biggest union, Unite, announced it was setting up a new unit to pursue cases of bogus self-employment. The Uber ruling could force a rethink of the gig economy business model, where companies use apps and the internet to match customers with workers. The firms do not employ the workers, but take commission from their earnings, and many have become huge global enterprises.
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Uber Loses Right To Classify UK Drivers as Self-Employed

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  • It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28, 2016 @06:26PM (#53172347)

    They have a lot of control over the drivers. Don't they still have a rule where the Uber app won't work if you have the Lyft app running? You aren't an "independent contractor" when your boss doesn't allow you to accept work from competitors. You are an employee.

    • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Friday October 28, 2016 @07:23PM (#53172617)

      they have a lot more control then that.
      Like
      can't set your own price
      limits on what tools (car) you can use.
      The rating system.
      can't really be Promoting Competitor’s Services (Including Your Own)
      limits on acceptance rates / can really see where a ride is going be for committing to it.
      and more

    • You aren't an "independent contractor" when your boss doesn't allow you to accept work from competitors.

      Actually you most definitely can be. This is not the reason why they're not an independent contractor.

  • Good for the UK (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday October 28, 2016 @07:15PM (#53172575)
    they've been employees since day 1. They can't set their own prices or solicit tips. That alone makes them employees even before we start talking about the amount of control Uber exerts.
    • You're saying this as if it the definition of the (now confirmed) employees wasn't the subject of a very long legal inquest. If it was as black and white as you say then you should be a lawyer, you could do 30 seconds of work and take home $millions solving those tough questions that people are debating all over the world.

      • You're saying this as if it the definition of the (now confirmed) employees wasn't the subject of a very long legal inquest.

        Apparently obvious things like this are often the subject of complex legal wrangling. The forms must be obeyed, as they say. One might as well ask why someone standing over a dead body with a bloody knife in their hand should have to stand trial before being incarcerated.

        • Apparently obvious ... complex legal....

          Yeah whatever else you put in between those two words of a sentence without a "not" in there somewhere is nonsense.

          It's either obvious or legally complex.

      • The case [i]was[/i] black and white. There was no possible alternative outcome -- anyone with an inkling of UK employment regs knew it. But the process had to be followed, so it was.
        • Stay tuned for the overturn on appeal then.

          Saying anything in the legal system is black and white is the reason why people don't understand that lawyers are a profession.

      • system, the concept of "Presumed Innocence" and the fact that judges err on the side of caution when issuing injunctions and the like (with the assumption that they can order payment in full with interest to the aggrieved party at the end of the trial).

        In the states it's only an issue because our Judicial branch overwhelmingly sides with property and the wealthy. Even more so than in the UK. Which is impressive when you think about it.
  • Uber is a parasite (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Living off the desperation of laborers, tempting them to give their labor so the wealthy class of owners can profit at their expense.

    • Actually the drivers are the owner class; they are the owners of their vehicles, and Uber provides a service to them. The Uber programmers labor to provide this service, fixing bugs at all hours of the night.

      Fixed that for you.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        The navvies are the owner class, they own the shovels. The Duke merely has his architects provide a service, telling them where to dig... they are the real workers. Yup, complete and utter drivel confirmed.

      • Owning something that depreciates half its value every year does not make you 'owner class'.
    • I await the data to speak to the following issue, but I strongly suspect all commercial rideshare services worsen driving for all drivers by structurally encouraging poor rideshare drivers to work without commercial car insurance. I suspect this choice drives up the cost of car insurance for other drivers operating their vehicles within the terms of their respective policy.

      I figure that poor drivers looking to make quick money by being employed by the rideshare service are more likely to attempt commercial

      • by dbIII ( 701233 )
        Fair enough but that word "rideshare" that you use so much is a blatant confidence trick and an insult to the reader's intelligence. It's part of the obfiscation that has created situations such as what you describe.
        • Come up with a term that covers all of the commercial services and I'll consider using that term instead. But I don't know of any such name and I won't use a name which is basically advertising for any of them (like calling all portable music players "walkmen" or "ipods", or calling an audio recording online a "podcast"). I understand the value of calling things by their proper names, but your post and a sibling post to yours complain of essentially the same thing while offering no specific language to use

      • "Rideshare" is something like Bla Bla Car [blablacar.co.uk]. Last I checked, Bla Bla Car's policies in the UK were set to ensure drivers never made anything that could be construed as a profit. They did this by capping their rates at the HMRC's published rates for what companies can give out as reimbursement for business mileage. This is real ridesharing/car-pooling/sharing-economy, because the idea is that no driver is actually working or profiting. Instead, they're simply taking a trip they would otherwise do anyway and ha
      • by dave420 ( 699308 )

        The fact you are claiming Uber is somehow a ride-sharing company speaks volumes. It's not. It's nothing close to a ride-sharing company.

  • What the Tribunal found was that the two drivers involved were effectively employees. Uber's attempts to have every party sign disclaimers had had no effect on the substance of the employment relationship, judged on quite traditional criteria. It is entirely possible that people who drive with Uber introductions in different circumstances do not have employee rights.

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