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Uber Contract 'Gibberish', Says MP Investigating Gig Economy (theguardian.com)
A committee of MPs has lambasted Uber's contracts with drivers as "gibberish" and "almost unintelligible" as the company attempts to ensure its drivers remain self-employed. From a report: Frank Field, chair of the work and pensions select committee that is carrying out an investigation into the so-called gig economy, said: "Quite frankly the Uber contract is gibberish. They are well aware that many, if not most, of their drivers speak English as a second language -- they recently lost a court case trying to escape Transport for London's new English testing rules for private hire drivers -- yet their contract is almost unintelligible." [...] Publishing full details of Uber's contract terms, along with those for the takeaway courier firm Deliveroo and Amazon, Field said all three used some kind of "egregious clause" which attempted to prevent people challenging their "self-employed" designation, although neither Uber's nor Amazon's contract went as far as Deliveroo's, in the committee's view.
> The 'gig economy' is here as the last attempt of the free market to address the collapsing actual economy
Dude, not even close. The 'gig' economy is a new generation of hucksters trying to figure out how to pay people even less to perform services on their behalf without having to bow to things like "regulation" and "laws", or have "employees" who do the actual service delivery to their "customers". The last two are in quotes because the Gig Economy actors pretend they are only facilitating a transaction between two external parties - 'Really !!! We have no skin in the game, we're just taking a modest commission hooking up these two people who want to exchange money for a service! We have no employees, there's no regulation that applies to us!'