For four years, The employment status of Uber drivers in the UK is like a colorful beach ball: insignificant, hit from court to court, look different depending on where you stand. On Friday, the country’s highest court decided: A group of 25 Uber drivers who had filed a lawsuit against the company should never have been treated as independent contractors, judges concluded. Instead, workers are entitled to a national minimum wage, paid time off, rest breaks and protection against discrimination.
For now, the decision only applies to the 25 drivers. But it is the latest sign of governments around the world straining Uber’s business model and that of its siblings in the gig economy, including DoorDash, Lyft, Amazon, Instacart and in the UK, the food delivery company Deliveroo. Lawmakers, lawyers, trade unions and organizers want companies to treat their employees better, even if the companies remain unprofitable.
“For the past 12 months, the courts have been swinging to protect the rights of workers in the gig economy,” said Ruwan Subasinghe, the legal director of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, which represents nearly 20 million workers in 150 countries. Last March, France’s highest court ruled that an Uber driver did not qualify as a self-employed contractor, making the hail and delivery company taxable. A similar statement followed in Italy last fall. Last month, the Belgian labor authority filed a lawsuit against the employee status of food deliverers. This week judges in the Netherlands ruled that bicycle couriers for Deliveroo do not qualify as freelance workers and that Deliveroo must pay an hourly wage instead of a wage per delivery.
Away from the courtrooms, the Spanish government plans to issue strict new rules this month that will change the employment status of the country’s food deliverers. And the European Union will begin this month discussing legislation that would regulate platform work, with the goal of enacting new labor rules by the end of the year. For example, the EU could relax antitrust laws to allow gig workers to bargain collectively, a kind of coordination that today could be considered an illegal cartel.
Uber has been claiming for years that it’s just a technology platform that connects business owners – people who own cars and want to make money – with customers who want rides and snacks. But Friday’s unanimous decision by the UK Supreme Court ruled that unlike other independent contractors, Uber drivers have no control over important parts of their work. The court said drivers do not lay down their own contract terms, that they are penalized for rejecting too many ride requests, that they are evaluated – using driver ratings – as employees. Sure, the court said, in theory Uber drivers are allowed to choose what kind of car they use, but Uber checks the make and model first.
Commenting on the decision, Jamie Heywood, Uber’s regional general manager for Northern and Eastern Europe, stressed that the ruling only applies “to a small number of drivers who used the Uber app in 2016” and that the company has made changes to its driver app since then. “We are committed to doing more and will now consult every active driver in the UK to understand the changes they want to see,” he said. Uber did not immediately announce changes to its service, but has said in the past that it will raise prices if it is forced to treat more of its drivers as employees.
Similar arguments play out in the US. A 2019 California law restricted employers’ use of independent contractors. Shortly afterward, a federal appeals court ruled that Uber’s drivers should be treated as employees, entitled to minimum wages, workers’ compensation and other benefits. Ultimately, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and others bypassed lawmakers as well as the courts by spending more than $ 200 million on a voting measure that allows them to continue treating employees as contractors, with some added benefits. The Californians approved Proposition 22 in November.