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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

#81

Post by ctoth »

roel_v wrote: post #40
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…

I feel really bad for small restaurant owners. These large delivery companies totally take over their internet marketing too, registering a domain like ' - .com' and when you go to that website, you really have to pay attention to see that this is not the 'official' restaurant website and if you order through there, it's costing the restaurant a lot of money that they wouldn't miss out on if you'd order through their…

It's 2021. If I were opening a restaurant in I think the bare minimum I could do would be to register the base domain? Okay, let's assume I don't. I'm still getting people ordering that wouldn't otherwise order? because I didn't have a website?

Still just don't see what's wrong here.

I don't want to mention that I'm blind in every frickin HN post but I'm blind, and Uber Eats and etc. are great. and there are restaurants that I specifically know that are in my neighborhood and they are not available on Uber Eats. And I don't order from them because I can't accessibly, so they lose my business presumably because they have opted out. Then there are other restaurants that are local and on Uber eats, and I order from them and feel absolutely fine that I have given the restaurant a sale it wouldn't have otherwise had and employed someone sitting in a car that otherwise had nothing to do. For a minor marginal cost, the restaurant made an extra sale and I got my food. If the restaurant did not want to make this transaction at all, it would not. So everybody came out ahead? I got food, Uber got money, the restaurant got money. What's wrong here? It's like the old argument so many have made about piracy. Uber eats turned a person who otherwise wouldn't be buying food into a sale. Who lost here?

Also, let's say that registering bobs-pizza-chicago.com is wrong. If so, this applies just as much to JebBush.com redirecting to Trump's website, and all the permutations you can think of there. We either solve domain squatting in the general case, or admit that it's shitty but just as okay when done to a restaurant as when done to your least favorite website or political figure.

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

#82

Post by blackoil »

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.

I have a brilliant business model which has been historically proven to had revolutionised agriculture. But these pesky politicians with no sense don't allow for slavery.

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

#83

Post by gjulianm »

ricardobayes wrote: post #69
gjulianm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not at all. They don't control your rates, they don't stop you from getting jobs if you reject a lot, they don't set any quality minimums for your job, and they don't remove you if someone doesn't give you five stars.

In other words, you're not working for these platforms, it's just a marketplace. With Uber, drivers are working for Uber, not for the passengers. However, Uber is pretending to be a marketplace, and it isn't. This sentence just proves that.

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

#84

Post by ricardobayes »

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.

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

#85

Post by kjakm »

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 case didn't determine an employee relationship - it determined a worker relationship. These are very different things legally. In terms of flexibility + rights it goes self-employed > worker > employee.

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

#86

Post by herbstein »

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?

> 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.

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

#87

Post by simias »

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?

You need to consider the full picture. If somebody gets hired to do my job for half my salary, no job security and worse working conditions and they say they're happy to do so, I'd still want the courts to decide whether those are acceptable terms.

Otherwise it's just a race to the bottom. See how many on HN seemed very happy that the USA made it harder for foreigners to get a work Visa in the USA because it undercut the local workforce. Unfettered capitalism will gladly let workers eat other for scraps.

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

#88

Post by Nursie »

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…

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, at least officially, they get no say over how or when I do the work, how much I am available to work etc.

Practically speaking, point 4 is usually something of a compromise, as the client needs me to deliver the work in a timely fashion, and me signing a contract then disappearing for a month wouldn't go down well! But neither would it be good business practice for me.

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

#89

Post by helsinkiandrew »

gpmcadam wrote: post #55
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, IR35 legislation (introduction delayed because of covid) would probably designated you as a 'disguised’ employee - ie contracting only to get the tax benefits of working via an intermediary company (less tax, paying yourself as dividends etc). https://www.hiscox.co.uk/business-blog/what-is-ir35-and-what...

Except they would actually have none of the benefits and security of being an employee by choice, so that argument is total tosh if you ask me No holidays, no sick pay, no minimum notice term, no overtime, no bonus, no 20% time, no paid lunches or benefits.

But they would be being 'paid' perhaps double the employee rate. Paying yourself and spouse with dividends (20% tax) rather than a salary, taking lots of business expenses, and withholding income until needed.

A few years ago this was common in many London investment banking dev jobs - it appealed to both the companies and certain developers. Often those who had other business interests.

I had a colleague whose contracting company was paying his wife in gold via an offshore company to further reduce tax paid (I only remember that from a drunken discussion so can't swear to its truthfulness)

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

#90

Post by tchalla »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #44
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…

In the UK, IR35 legislation (introduction delayed because of covid) would probably designated you as a 'disguised’ employee - ie contracting only to get the tax benefits of working via an intermediary company (less tax, paying yourself as dividends etc). https://www.hiscox.co.uk/business-blog/what-is-ir35-and-what...

In Germany, there's a similar title denoted as "Scheinselbststaendigkeit" or a "Pseudo False Self-Employment".

https://www.freelancermap.de/blog/aktuelle-rechtslage-zur-sc...

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