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Uber Appeals Against Ruling that Its UK Drivers Are Workers (theguardian.com)
Uber has launched an appeal against a landmark employment tribunal ruling that its minicab drivers should be classed as workers with access to the minimum wage, sick pay and paid holidays. From a report on The Guardian: The taxi-app company filed papers with the appeal tribunal on Tuesday in an attempt to overturn the October judgment that, if it stands, could affect tens of thousands of workers in the gig economy. The move came as several dozen Uber drivers picketed City Hall on Wednesday holding placards demanding Transport for London, which licences Uber as a private hire operator in the capital, "end sweated labour now." It also mounted a protest at the City of London offices of Salesforce, a US computing company that is a major Uber client. Two Uber drivers, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, took Uber to court on behalf of a group 19 others who argued that they were employed by the San Francisco-based company, rather than working for themselves. Uber's business model has been based on treating drivers who log on to its app as self-employed contractors and taking a cut of their fares, which Uber dictates.
Independent contractors should able to set independent rates.
Um bullshit. Companies hire contractors at their own set rates. The ability to set your own rate has nothing to do with being a contractor.
Specific working conditions define whether a worker is an employee or is a contractor, and the laws governing such are generally pretty straightforward.
Sadly, in the UK the law in this area is anything but straightforward. This has been a controversial issue, the ambiguity has been a significant problem for genuine contractors, freelancers and sometimes small family businesses for a long time now, and the loss of tax revenue to disguised employees is a problem for the government as well.
However, in this case, Uber seems to be on the wrong side of so many of the usual indicators that it's hard to see how it stands any chance at all of victory here unless some sort of dubious legal shenanigans are possible.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I would posit, that if you are trying to make a living by driving Uber, then my friend YOU have made some serious vocational errors along your life so far...
NOT every job is meant to be a living wage job, plain and simple. This thought that it is, is a pretty new and puzzling philosophy to me.
Uber is a side job, to earn a bit of extra money.
The best generic answer is, if you are needing to make a living, and your current job doesn't pay you enough, then use common sense and GET DIFFERENT JOB....
Eff...by definition, a contractor choose their OWN hours.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I just looked up this IR35 thing....a UK rule.
Yep.
I just don't get it...WHY are governments so fucking afraid to let people make up their own minds how they want to be employed, what jobs to take and HOW they are compensated for it?
I've done a fair bit of contracting and I'm in favour if IR35.
These laws don't come from nowhere. There's not a panel of MPs sitting round figuring how to screw you just for the hell of it (unless you're poor and the Tories are in power).
Most of the "contracting" was just a tax dodge. If the money is paid to a company, that company can pay dividends (lower tax rate) and there's no national insurance (basically a form of income tax) for the employer to make their contribution too. Additionally, the money can be moved off without taxes since it's just regular business to business stuff.
IOW it's a massive tax dodge most of the time.
The other thing is that employees used to have far fewer rights. We know how it plays out and it turns out those rights are a good thing. And if you want that protection of a company it comes with responsibilities to your employees because the country works better that way. And ultimately since we have a welfare state willing to step in when the proverbial hits the fan so if companies go screwing over employees every other taxpayer ends up on the hook. So wanting to have regular employees but none of the responsibilities is yet more freeloading.
And companies started doing that a lot. Not all, but enough that it became a problem. So the government passed a law that you can't skimp on obligations by playing word games. I think that's reasonable.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
That's the problem with many of the commenters on this article. Acting as if everything that is not a 9-5 office job is contracting is somewhat naive.
In the 1990s I was a contractor, which was fine, until I started getting more than 90% of my work from one client upon which I had tax hassles because I was then considered an employee. The people who only work for Uber would not be considered contractors in most of the world.