LONDON (CU)_Uber will be giving its 70,000 UK drivers a guaranteed minimum wage, pensions and holiday pay, following a recent court ruling which said they should be classified as workers and not independent contractors. The announcement on Tuesday (16 March) comes after the taxi app lost an appeal at the UK Supreme Court last month following a years’ long court battle.
Accordingly, the company’s drivers will be paid a minimum wage which currently stands at £8.72 ($12.12), after accepting a trip request. They will also be entitled to receive holiday pay equal to about 12 per cent of their earnings, which will be paid every two weeks. Moreover, they will be enrolled in a pension plan to which both the company and the drivers will contribute.
“This is an important day for drivers in the UK,” Jamie Heywood, Uber’s regional general manager for Northern and Eastern Europe, said in a filing to the SEC. “Uber is just one part of a larger private-hire industry, so we hope that all other operators will join us in improving the quality of work for these important workers who are an essential part of our everyday lives.”
According to Heywood, the drivers will still be able to work on a flexible basis.
However, the drivers who filed the case are of the view that it is not enough. James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam of the App Drivers and Couriers Union claim that the offer was “a day late and a dollar short”, as it stopped short of the Supreme Court ruling which required the company to calculate the drivers’ pay from when they log on to the app until they log off.
Prior to the ruling, Uber drivers were treated as self-employers, meaning they are only afforded minimal protection by law. However, in the case led by Farrar and Aslam, a London employment tribunal ruled in 2016 that they are entitled to several other privileges such as minimum wage, paid holidays and rest breaks.
Therefore, the San Francisco-based company appealed the decision all the way up to Britain’s Supreme Court, claiming that Uber acts as more of an “agency” which connects the drivers with passengers through an app. The firm also alleged that the drivers prefer this “gig” model as it’s more flexible, and also benefits Uber from a cost perspective.
However, in the United States, in a ballot proposition in California last November, it was voters decided in favour of an initiative exempting app-based food delivery and ride-hailing services from classifying their drivers as workers and not independent contractors.
