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Uber Loses Right To Classify UK Drivers as Self-Employed (theguardian.com)
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.
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.
I love how people try to campaign against their own jobs. What's better.. employee rights without employment or working on your own hours and still making money? If it upsets you then go find somewhere else to work and let people who want to contract continue contracting.
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.
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leaving satisfied.
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they're campaigning for real jobs, with real job protections. People died for minimum wage and the 40 hour work week, ya know? Don't underestimate the working class. They're not as dumb as folks like think. Down on their luck, yeah. But not dumb.
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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
There will be appeal process to this. During appeal process finally THE logic, the legal logic, will be used and the ruling of the lower court will be thrown away. It is that simple. Luckily there is a reasonable and predictable legal process. There are so many arguments and practical hacks against the ruling that it is not even practicable to even list those arguments, and we will not even attempt to do so.
However here is one:
Under the current interpretation, all you need to do is to register yourself, and the money starts flowing. Reality is that, the law would force employment contract between Uber and the driver, while, clearly, there is no agreement between the the Uber and the driver, and Uber is under no commitment to bring business to the driver when there is none.
So, what you need to do is to open an Uber account, go to the furthest part of the island, where there is a zero demand for UBER service, preferably during the night and check-in. Leave the car overnight and let the idle car make money, while doing nothing.
Opportunities are limitless.
All it will do is that Uber will accelerate driver-less car fleet and those who were petitioning for minimum hourly rate, on behalf of all drivers, will accelerate mass joblessness, as most of the Uber drivers will be obsolete.
That is a matter of a decade.
but some workers where not even makeing the Minimum wage. With the app work / other misclassified 1099's they have all the control but don't want to pay for car / truck reimbursement, pay for waiting time, pay for on call time, full workers comp / other liability's, taxes, cell phone / other tools reimbursement. return to base time / mileage reimbursement. (after say a long run out of your base area)
piece work pay that can end up being under Minimum wage. Forced to split your piece work pay when they say you need to train a new guy.
Some don't pay full mileage rates or tolls / parking fees.
Some app work / other misclassified 1099 force there workers to buy / rent uniforms, there software, tools, rent there cell phone / pda, etc.
Also a true 1099 can sub out any work then want or even have any one they want to cover there work for them.
I would suspend operations until the government saw things my way! The ingrates can loose out on the Great Ride Sharing Service Uber. Then the people of the UK can then protest against the government action and get the law changed or do without.
uber needs to do the knowledge if they want to stay
Living off the desperation of laborers, tempting them to give their labor so the wealthy class of owners can profit at their expense.
don't work for Uber then. They dictate all of your terms except when you're 'on', and if you're 'on' and turn down a ride (even one you know you'll lose money on) they'll penalize you.
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which has much weaker employee protections than the UK. Not that the UK is doing great. Ever since Reagan/Thatcher their working class has been getting picked apart.
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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 ridesharing without car insurance.
When the uninsured (or improperly insured, there's no distinguishable difference here) have an accident, the other driver is likely to be an insured driver operating their vehicle within the terms of their insurance. If the rideshare driver is at fault and they don't have commercial car insurance, their insurance agent hears about the accident and says the insurer won't cover any damage to either vehicle, the attempted claim is a breach of contract, and whatever insurance they had is now canceled. In order to be made whole, the insured driver has to have thought ahead to this situation and previously bought "uninsured driver" insurance. This additional policy increases the cost of any car insurance.
Sure, uninsured driver insurance existed well before rideshare services. But I suspect organized, commercialized rideshare services increase the odds that one will need uninsured driver insurance because people have a tough time holding the rideshare service liable for accidents their employees (inappropriately called "independent contractors") cause.
Digital Citizen
The goal wasn't to make temp work awesome, or to lift temp workers up, it was to restore honesty about who is and isn't a temp.
Then why not adjust the law so that there is no temporary/contractor/contingent/casual classifications, just FTE? Making it bad just because it is "temporary work" makes no sense - it just enables a benefit dodge.
The ones who become important during their work... will be hired on regular
I guarantee important fake-employees became real employees when their time-away approached.
Citation needed on that one - conversion rates aren't high enough and incentives don't work that way.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
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.
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.
"Rideshare" is something like Bla Bla Car. 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 having their costs offset by someone else. That's a good model for ridesharing. Uber's something else entirely.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Just to clarify an uber driver can't grant uber the right to break the law.
some people have store fronts on eBay and it's like a flea market there the market has a few rules (no where near uber) and changes rent / fees for the space.
I mean your cries about how the world has done nothing for you so you don't need to give anything back.
"I've got mine" is not a philosophy. It is a character flaw.
As for the shit you are always going on about with needing guns to overthrow your country - look up Hungary 1956 to see how you would just end up as a small read smear on the ground if you want to do things in such a stupid way. Guns don't win countries. A lot of people working together as well as an army win countries. That lone wolf anarchist shit you push is insane, greedy and sociopathic.
You kicked off with what looked like a very obvious lie - there is no total ban.
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.
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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 instead.
Also, I believe the name covering these services is hardly significant in terms of why people would choose to use them. These services are inexpensive (probably partially due to the savings of not having to deal with car insurance) and convenient due to integrating quite well with mobile phones; a potent combination which I understand traditional cab services didn't really compete with until pushed by these services.
Digital Citizen
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.