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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

#201

Post by Mauricebranagh »

dexen wrote: post #92
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…

>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 I sure hope they'l…

We don't have the (corrupt and failed) medallion system in the UK and we certainly don't have "city" managed "taxi" drivers.

This is the UK supreme court (the one where the judges have real world experience)

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

#202

Post by manigandham »

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.

Legality already is society’s measure of what’s acceptable. If you want to change the standard then you do so by changing the law.

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

#203

Post by vitus »

chrisseaton wrote: post #161
roenxi wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mr. Wave may have meant legally objectionable as in "the objection that would be the core of the legal case" or "the legal system objects to this". Similar to how a legal complaint doesn't mean someone whining.

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?

Trademark infringement is a big one, and yes, it can be applied even if the trademark isn't registered.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1125#a

1125(a)(1) is pretty unambiguous in this context. If Grubhub is using a restaurant's name to "deceive as to ... the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods", that's cause for civil action.

California also has a new law explicitly addressing this issue:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

... and yes, there's an aptly-named website called https://www.grubhublawsuit.com/ describing a class-action lawsuit on this specific topic.

And no, that website isn't an infringement of Grubhub's mark if it's not likely to be confused with Grubhub's business. (It'd be a different story if Grubhub were a law firm in the business of filing class action lawsuits.)

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

#204

Post by pessimizer »

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…

> Uber doesn't seem like the kind of firm where drivers might have a teambuilding excursion

Uber seems like the kind of firm that would actively discourage drivers from speaking to each other.

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

#205

Post by ilovetux »

foepys wrote: post #75
orlp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be straight up illegal and the companies sued to hell for. If I opened a site claiming to be a bank and accepting money on behalf of that bank, and keeping 20% I'd be behind bars for fraud in no time.

Those delivery services employ many lawyers and bet on the fact that a family owned restaurants doesn't have the guts or money to sue. Truly despicable.

IANAL, but isn't this exactly why class action lawsuits exist?

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

#206

Post by pessimizer »

saddlerustle wrote: post #132
herbstein wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now they’re all permanent employees of Uber will they lose this flexibility? Nothing in employment law mandates an inflexible work schedule. You can have perfect flexibility while being an employee.

No, lots of jurisdictions have predictive scheduling laws for employees.

Predictive scheduling is an obligation of the employer, not the employee.

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

#207

Post by maxsilver »

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.

You can, actually, make a circumstance illegal. The vast majority of regulation explicitly make circumstances illegal.

"That ladder just happened to be placed there". "The forklift happened to be parked that way". "The room happened to have too many people in it". "The fire extinguisher happened to be expired and failed to fire" -- all illegal circumstances (in various parts of the US, based on Federal/State/Local regulations)

"They needed to sue, but couldn't get a lawyer" is absolutely a circumstance we could make illegal. Making a circumstance illegal doesn't mean it will never happen, of course, but it does mean there can be immediate repercussions and fixes for it if/when it does.

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

#208

Post by Mauricebranagh »

secfirstmd wrote: post #112

Hopefully this will spread to other companies. IR35 in the UK is a very good law when enforced (usually against small businesses rather than big ones unfoet) for cutting through bullshit contract statuses that are designed to dodge employment taxes/benefits. I hope it's extended to bigger companies and elsewhere. I know for example in Ireland lots of big companies like Facebook, Google etc have staff on 11 month cont…

No its not - why should some one doing a 9 month cover for maternity leave be treated as an employee.

When "self employed" lawyers can work on the same case for years.

Note that ir35 is not uniformly applied - unfortunately its bad employers like Uber et all that fuck it up for professionals like us.

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

#209

Post by Mauricebranagh »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #27

Not sure if this still allows Uber to use Zero Hour employment contacts? Probably. These are controversial in the UK but still legal, and seems to me like a way for Uber to have it both ways apart from having to pay minimum wage.

I have worked on zero hour contracts and we got an enhanced rate compared to full timers doing the same job to cover this.

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

#210

Post by vidarh »

emteycz wrote: post #193
vidarh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber pretends you're working for the customer, not them. That is a key element in their attempt to pretend they're not an employer.

Negotiating with Uber, not working for Uber. Uber is a middleman/platform connecting customers with providers, guaranteeing terms of contract to both parties. It works just the same with most IT contracting firms (and the same is true in other sectors too - construction, medical, etc).

A lot of IT contracting firms in the UK have in recent years had to drastically change their practices exactly because ensuring a contract does not create a relationship that would be deemed to be an employment relationship has gotten progressively harder, exactly because it was being massively abused, so this is a very poor argument in the UK.

The lack of ability to negotiate prices - be it with a middleman or the actual customer - is one of several tests to that points strongly towards an employee relationship, whether you're a driver or an IT contractor.

I'll note that I see you say elsewhere you're an IT contractor. If you're an IT contractor in the UK, I presume you've had to answer questions about IR35. If you haven't, then you really should have a discussion about IR35 with your accountant, because get that wrong and you risk facing a massive tax bill.

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