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Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

bbc.co.uk

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

#61

Post by mytailorisrich »

lovedswain wrote: post #50
mytailorisrich wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Before Deliveroo (and similar services) restaurants (in UK/Europe since you discuss London) did not offer delivery at all. Handling the whole order (which these days means online/through an app) and delivery in-house is costly and restaurants use Deliveroo because…

> Before Deliveroo (and similar services) restaurants did not offer delivery at all. This is far from universally true, especially Asian takeaways typically hired their own driver, but the practice was also commonplace for many actual restaurants too

Traditional restaurants (in UK/Europe) did not offer delivery, for them Deliveroo or similar is their first foray into delivery, which is made easy because Deliveroo handles everything.

Delivery for traditional restaurants has become a thing in the last 10 years or so when online services popped up.

It's strange to argue about this...

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

#62

Post by gpmcadam »

Every Uber driver I speak to tells me how they prefer Uber to their previous job of a cabbie for a firm, they get flexibility, set their own hours and choose when to work

Now they’re all permanent employees of Uber will they lose this flexibility?

If some drivers weren’t happy with the status quo, why not take their skills and work for another firm?

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

#63

Post by vidarh »

fallingknife wrote: post #47
kjakm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 1. The company set the hourly rate which meant they dictated how much I could earn This rate would have been negotiated by you. You then agreed to a specific rate. The price of Uber rides varies based on demand so the driver doesn't know the price in advance + even if they did they are not allowed to refuse the ride.

Variable pricing based on demand is definitely an unusual feature of Uber's contract, but it would also be nearly unheard of in a full time employee's pay structure. So I don't see how it could be used as a determining factor that defines this contract as an employee/employer relationship.

The issue here is that Uber pretends the driver is contracted by the passenger. In which case the driver should be free to negotiate with the passenger.

That Uber exercises control of the relationship is what is indicating that Uber is an employer here.

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

#64

Post by kukx »

habosa wrote: post #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 restau…

"Let's pay them." Ok, with whose money? I am all for good pay for everyone. The problem begins when we detach the pay from the value created by the worker. In many cases worker may become too expensive to hire. So trying to force business to pay more may result in less people having job.

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

#65

Post by unishark »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #13
WannaFly wrote: post #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.

Take away the gig economy part from Uber and it becomes a regular taxi market, an industry that has been around for a hundred years already, with all the checks and balances installed already (from driver and passenger rights to ride fares to maximum amount of drivers allowed to operate in a certain area to avoid oversaturating the market). And in that environment it is not viable. Or, not viable to SF standards, in…

> Take away the gig economy part from Uber and it becomes a regular taxi market, an industry that has been around for a hundred years already, with all the checks and balances installed already (from driver and passenger rights to ride fares to maximum amount of drivers allowed to operate in a certain area to avoid oversaturating the market).

Let's not forget that in that world uber drivers are unemployed while taxi drivers make more money.

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

#66

Post by learnstats2 »

lordnacho wrote: post #25

I don't know anything about how the law works, but it seems to accord with the reality of how people tend to think of jobs. Have you ever met an Uber driver who didn't give the impression that this was what he did all the time? I haven't, though I imagine not everyone is full time. It's quite a way from the idea that anyone with a car can give someone else a ride. For instance, I've never met a driver who happened to…

> Have you ever met an Uber driver who didn't give the impression that this was what he did all the time?

My impression is that every Uber driver I have met, in the UK, was also working for a more traditional driver agency.

I believe it's contractual that Uber drivers are not allowed to give this impression?

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

#67

Post by emteycz »

namdnay wrote: post #58
fallingknife wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did have that opportunity, as does an Uber driver. But, as is the case in any negotiation, the counterparty has the right to hold firm on the price.

An Uber driver has no opportunity to negotiate the rate with the customer. If in the app you said "I want to go to the airport" and then each driver interested replied with a quote, that would be rate negotiation.

You're negotiating with Uber, not with customers. Uber says take it or leave it, and you can work with another company if it has better terms/rate.

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

#68

Post by baq »

fallingknife wrote: post #22
rogual wrote: post #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 t…

This doesn't make sense to me. I did some contract work a couple years ago and: 1. The company set the hourly rate which meant they dictated how much I could earn 2. The company set the contract terms 3. The company told me what features to build and could penalize me if I decided not to build some 4. The company could evaluate my performance any way they wanted and terminate the contract at any time for no cause If…

the company couldn't either, but nobody sued.

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

#69

Post by ricardobayes »

gjulianm wrote: post #54
fallingknife wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense to me. I did some contract work a couple years ago and: 1. The company set the hourly rate which meant they dictated how much I could earn 2. The company set the contract terms 3. The company told me what features to build and could penalize me if I decided not to build some 4. The company could evaluate my performance any way they wanted and terminate the contract at any time for no cause If…

You're confusing the situation. Uber acts as an intermediary party between the contractor and the client (the passenger), so you should compare it to platforms for contract work, such as Upwork, or fiverr, or something like that. The point of Uber is that they're only an intermediate party that puts clients and drivers together. Drivers are not providing a service to Uber.

So following that chain of thought freelancers through Upwork and Fiverr need to be qualified as workers too? That would be absurd and probably hurt the self-employed more than it helps.

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

#70

Post by vidarh »

fallingknife wrote: post #41
TomGullen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is yours would of been a short defined period, Uber is open ended. You would be entitled to sick pay, holiday etc if you are a worker in effect (if the contract is too long).

It ended up being several months, but the contract was actually written as open ended until notice of termination was given by either party.

Sounds very likely it could have been deemed employment if it had lasted long enough and been taken to a tribunal (or if HMRC found out, this significantly increases the likelihood they'd find it to be within IR35). That it only lasted "several months" would reduce the chance, but if you'd e.g. stayed longer than a year, odds would increase accordingly.
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