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‘Biggest march of gig economy workers’ takes on Uber bosses

Taxi app giant heads to court to halt drivers' right to sick pay

HUNDREDS of people gathered in central London today for what organisers have described as Britain’s biggest ever march of precarious workers.

They marched to the Royal Courts of Justice where Uber representatives challenged two employment tribunal decisions that had declared the taxi app’s drivers employees rather than workers – meaning they were entitled to holidays and sick pay.

March organisers Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) – representing two of the drivers defending their case against Uber – brought together drivers, fast food workers, Deliveroo couriers and outsourced cleaners in the protest.

A 20-metre-wide banner emblazoned with the words “Precarious Workers Fight Back” was unfurled as they crossed Blackfriars Bridge.

The issue of precarious and zero-hours contract work has snowballed recently, with workers – many of whom have been with the companies for years – demanding the same rights as employees, including being paid the national minimum wage.  

Inside the Court of Appeal, Uber claimed that the previous tribunal rulings ignored the fact that the relationship between the company and its drivers is “typical of the private hire industry.”

The previous rulings in favour of co-claimants Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar could pave the way for thousands of Uber drivers in Britain to receive backdated national minimum wage and holiday pay, with some in line to receive up to £18,000 each from the past three years according to union GMB.

Uber contends that both tribunals “erred in law” in concluding that the pair were workers, submitting that it “wrongly disregarded the written contracts in which the parties’ agreements were recorded.”

An earlier employment tribunal found Uber’s agreements with drivers contained “fictions, twisted language and even brand new terminology” and that the contracts “did not correspond with the practical reality.”

Dinah Rose QC, for Uber, argued in the appeal hearing that the tribunals “misunderstood or failed to apply basic principles of agency law.”

Jason Galbraith-Marten QC, for Mr Aslam and Mr Farrar, said there was “no express agreement” by which the claimants appointed Uber “to act as their agent.”

He said that the tribunals’ task was therefore to “determine the true nature of the (implied) agreement” between drivers and Uber.

The tribunals were “entitled to ask whether the claimants are genuinely in business on their own account” or whether they were “providing their services” to Uber, he added.

If Uber was not acting as the drivers’ agent, “the purported driver-passenger contract is indeed a fiction,” he also said.

The two-day hearing concludes tomorrow.

Outside the court IWGB general secretary Dr Jason Moyer-Lee, CWU general secretary Dave Ward and work and pensions committee chair Frank Field MP demanded an end to the so-called “gig economy.”

Mr Moyer-Lee said the march was a demonstration of the “legitimate rage” of precarious and exploited workers.

Mr Field said Uber have been “stretching” the dispute over years because they are “rich enough to put themselves above the law.”

The march continued to the University of London, where outsourced cleaners, security officers and receptionists were on strike demanding to be made direct employees of the university.

Speakers outside the university’s library Senate House included Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley, War on Want executive director Asad Rehman, Momentum NCG member Becky Boumelha, TGI Friday’s striker Lauren Townsend, United Voices of the World campaigner Susana Benavides and IWGB University of London rep Margarita Cunalata.

The march proceeded to The Doctors Laboratory, where NHS couriers are demanding a pay rise after two pay cuts.

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