Uber taxi drivers should be treated as employees and not as self-employed people. That is what the British High Court, the UK’s highest judicial body, decided on Friday Rule. In the Netherlands, a similar case is now pending against the taxi platform.
The ruling grants around 60,000 British Uber drivers things like vacation days and minimum wages. Hence the taxi platform can expect much higher fares. Moreover, the judgment may have consequences for the economy of the additional platform, as many platform companies operate in the same manner.
The UK case against Uber is not unique: the French Court of Cassation also ruled in 2019 that drivers of the platform should be seen as employees and not self-employed. At the time, the court concluded that there was a “relationship of dependency” between the director and the company at Uber. The court concluded at the time that “the manager does not offer his services as a self-employed person, but as an employee.”
At the end of last year, the Netherlands’ largest trade union, FNV, also filed in court to put an end to Uber’s fake freelance creations. “Uber acts like an employer in everything,” said Amrit Siogobind, the FNV driver at the time. “It determines which drivers and vehicles are allowed to enter the platform, their driving rate, and monitors the performance of drivers.”
