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Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

bbc.co.uk

1–10 of 387 posts

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#2
Interesting. I wonder what consequences this will have in the british market(IIRC it being one of their major hubs in Europe). I don't think they'll pull out at this point though, but will make it marginally impossible for new drivers to be accepted (unless demand increases dramatically but I don't see that happening either due to "current events")

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#5

Interesting. I wonder what consequences this will have in the british market(IIRC it being one of their major hubs in Europe). I don't think they'll pull out at this point though, but will make it marginally impossible for new drivers to be accepted (unless demand increases dramatically but I don't see that happening either due to "current events")

what uber is dooing in some countries is having partner company hire a driver, so the driver does not directly work for uber but for a partner, so uber does not have a problem.

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#6
The court made very specific arguments:

1. Uber set the fare which meant that they dictated how much drivers could earn 2. Uber set the contract terms and drivers had no say in them 3. Request for rides is constrained by Uber who can penalise drivers if they reject too many rides 4. Uber monitors a driver's service through the star rating and has the capacity to terminate the relationship if after repeated warnings this does not improve

Even if this does hurt Uber short-term, it sounds like the gig economy will be just fine, as long as companies change their behaviour with respect to the above points.

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#7
As far as I can tell there have been similar rulings in other countries and it hasn't caused issues. Germany and Spain have fleets who take the responsibility (Cabify in Spain if you want to look it up). I assume a similar model will pop up in London, they definitely won't want to pull out of the market.

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#9
They so clueless, they think that companies have a money tree and evil CEO just refuse to give them a piece of money. Uber it's an unprofitable company and workers demand more benefits, from the company that can't pay than current salary without external investments. "If we had these rights today, those drivers could at least earn a minimum wage to live on". No, you will be fired.

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#10
Really interested to see what this does to Deliveroo. I live in central London on a pretty busy street and it's really wild how many Deliveroo drivers there are. In front of most of the popular takeaway restaurants there are 3-5 drivers waiting at any given time. The increase in delivery and decrease in normal foot traffic during the pandemic has made this really stick out.

Deliveroo already totally robs these restaurants. Even for a click and collect order where I get the food myself Deliveroo takes ~20-30%. I assume this will cause Deliveroo to either increase fees or reduce service which may inspire more restuarants to hire their own delivery people again.

Overall I think this is a good thing, especially now. These gig workers have been absolutely essential to society over the past year. People have been able to safely shelter in their home while these guys (it's mostly guys) go out and take all the risks. Let's pay them.

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