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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

#181

Post by chrisseaton »

Larrikin wrote: post #177
chrisseaton wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they did then what do they think is the infraction or offence that is being committed? They're being objectionable by committing or infracting... what? What law or regulation would they be breaking?

I would hate to live in the world you imagine where every single awful thing that isn't obviously illegal is considered acceptable by society.

And I'd hate to live in a world where you can drag anyone you want before a judge because you don't like what they're doing.

I don't like the colour of your shirt, so I'm going to say it's objectionable. It doesn't break any laws or infringe any regulations, but I want a judge's opinion on it anyway.

See?

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

#182

Post by cloudfifty »

gpmcadam wrote: post #62

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?

Do you really get the full story though? Are you biased? Compared to what? Do you believe that most drivers would choose flexibility over the other benefits?

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

#183

Post by lawtalkinghuman »

ricardobayes wrote: post #84
gpmcadam wrote: post #62

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?

This is probably a politically fuelled ruling. Boris Johnson wants to 'appeal to the masses' by making high-visibility rules like these, which sound good on paper but probably do more harm than good.

That is a somewhat remarkable reading of recent events.

The UK government has been on something of an anti-judicial kick for the last year or so since the decision in Miller II/Cherry, the prorogations case (and a few other cases that haven't had as much press attention such as the Privacy International case on ouster clauses).

They've been talking about "reforming" or "scaling back" the Supreme Court—perhaps simply by renaming it—and talking about how judges have too much power, and are too "political", which somehow they propose to fix by replacing the independent appointment process with a more explicitly political one.

Also, if Johnson and the Conservatives wished to bring about the same result, they don't need a Supreme Court decision to do so—they have an 80 seat majority, a large chunk of which come from disaffected Labour voters in the so-called "Northern heartlands" who are perfectly happy to have employment rights improved. The Conservatives could, if they wished, quite easily pass primary legislation to specifically make gig economy or app-based workers have the status of workers under employment law - they'd probably get cross-party support for it.

See:

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/nov/15/supreme-court-pl...

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/government-urged-to-rename-...

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

#184

Post by TulliusCicero »

jessesoo wrote: post #164
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…

This question has been bothering me for a very long time now, does a food delivery platform really require the 20-30% fee to operate? If so, what justifies it? Or is it because of the spike in demand due to the pandemic so they can get away with it?

Food delivery is labor intensive. 20-30% is probably unreasonably high for a big order, but if you're only ordering a couple of dishes that percentage probably makes sense.

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

#185

Post by varjag »

chrisseaton wrote: post #180
jychang wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trademark law, mostly. If I open an Apple Store, I'm gonna get a lot of lawsuits headed my way in no time. You can't just use another company's logo and name without their permission.

> You can't just use another company's logo and name without their permission. I'm afraid I think you're mistaken. You're allowed to use someone's trademark to factually describe the product you're selling. You don't need the owner's permission to do that. If you're selling an actual Apple laptop, you can use the trademarks 'Apple' and the Apple logo to describe it. If you're selling an actual Bob's Burger, you can u…

It could be eye opening to create an applestore-sf.com and try selling apple laptops there.

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

#186

Post by pessimizer »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #130
csunbird wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having access to the justice because of shortage of money should be illegal instead.

You can't make a circumstance illegal.

Yes, you can. You can make it illegal for the accused to lack representation in court if they desire it, you can make it illegal for a person to walk the street without a certain minimum amount of money in their pocket, you can make it illegal for a person under age X to not be at school at a particular part of the day without a reasonable excuse, etc. It's been done. You can even always define an occurrence as an act e.g. access to justice cannot be denied, or a shed cannot be permitted to remain purple.

Maybe you mean that making a circumstance illegal doesn't necessarily prevent a circumstance from occurring?

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

#187

Post by unishark »

Nursie wrote: post #88
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…

I contract/consult all the time. I don't see these the same - 1. I negotiate a rate. Sometimes I negotiate a higher rate after a few months. 2. I have frequently asked for changes to contract terms, usually after a legal review, and had those changes put in place. 3.... kinda agree with you, not sure it's exactly the same as the uber situation 4. The client company can't evaluate my performance in any way they want,…

Your example is not as logically meaningful however. An example of something not being done (i.e., negotiation) can serve as a proof it is not necessary, assuming it was legal. The converse doesn't work. Maybe your experience is with companies who like to do legally-unnecessary things.

Large companies obviously don't negotiate as much as small companies. In the US, contracting for engineering has been outlawed to a large degree, so large companies avoid doing it because the penalties are retroactive taxes and fines. And perhaps class action suits from former contractors as well. So it's mainly small companies without "by the book" behavior doing it in software. In other fields, it is completely common however.

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

#188

Post by prepend »

yomly wrote: post #173
twoslide wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An owner of a local restaurant told me he pays about 30% revenue to share to Deliveroo, as part of his agreement with them. He also runs his own delivery service, and encourages customers to use that (phoning in) rather than Deliveroo.

A Chinese restaurant in Lambeth tried disabling uber eats a few years back and running their own delivery service. Our food arrived TWO HOURS after ordering and cold. I'd really rather NOT go back to the old way.

I think it’s just too hard to organize drivers and delivery. I’ve never experienced a restaurant where their own delivery drivers are as fast, efficient, smart as Uber/etc.

I’d rather just go pick it up myself than use restaurant delivery.

I’m sure there may be exceptions somewhere, but even in Manhattan the deliveries that work for the restaurant sucked.

I think it’s that there’s no simple feedback loop.

An example is my local mom and pop pizza place. They used to have a few teenagers who would wait tables and drive deliveries. They meant well and tried hard, but it would take a long time for delivery. I’m a 15 minute walk and it would take two hours for two pizzas. If something was off I could talk to the owner and that took a long time but it was never anything bad enough to fire the poor driver, nor should they be. So the poor delivery lingered on.

They switched to Uber and deliveries went to 15-45 minutes. Not perfect but much better. Also easier to enter the order on my phone than calling it in.

Any time the food is cold or off, it’s easy to rate and get fixed.

It’s like taxis vs Uber rides. Taxis did have some advantages, but it way better now. Generally Uber drivers make more than taxi drivers, but there were some owner operator taxis (super rare at least in NY where almost all cabs are owned by big firms) who are losing out.

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

#189

Post by cloudfifty »

rorykoehler wrote: post #171

The world would be a lot better if we had a reasonable minimum economic floor and unrestricted zero hours at will employment. We're band-aiding over artificial problems we created for ourselves instead of actually redesigning policy and law to fit 21st century technology and the opportunities it presents.

What recent technological changes mandates reverting labour laws? To me that argument just sounds like throwing some buzzword in front of legislators that are scared of being perceived as obsolete.

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

#190

Post by TulliusCicero »

Kneecaps07 wrote: post #176
nebolo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do it? I really don't see the problem. I get that Deliveroo puts you on their platform even if you don't agree (the apps where I live don't do this), but if that's the case the restaurant is still getting the full price for selling their food. The customer pays the extra 20%.

Some restaurant owners don't like this. It gives the impression that the restaurant is charging that extra money.

Yeah, there should be a regulation that lets restaurants opt-out, or enforces price transparency on the delivery company's app (must show both original price from the restaurant in addition to final price).
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